simply taken a snapshot of the entire
directory structure, which he’d offered to the Russians as a shopping list, from which to choose the files they wanted to see.
The days when SIS officers were exempt from the payment of income tax were long gone, and nowadays officers receive an index-linked salary based upon the fairly modest scales set by the
Treasury. Stanway’s lucrative activities as a mole allowed him to enjoy a lifestyle that was opulent rather than comfortable but, unlike Aldrich Ames, he had always been more than happy to
explain to anyone curious enough to ask exactly how his wealth was earned.
He had realized, right from the start of his information-broking ‘career’, that the principal danger of his being detected would probably not come from anything as mundane as a spot
check as he left Vauxhall Cross, but far more likely from the Inland Revenue. That was possible if he suddenly began spending money he couldn’t account for – and Stanway had every
intention of spending his money.
The occasional sale of information to minor nations like Libya had been paid for in cash, money that he kept in a safety-deposit box at his bank, to be spent gradually and discreetly, usually in
buying readily convertible assets, like paintings, antique furniture, good-quality diamonds, watches and the like.
But his first and best customers were the Russians, and with them he had developed a payment system that seemed foolproof, or at least as foolproof as any system ever could be. With a genuine
inheritance of over half a million pounds, after tax, from an aunt some ten years earlier – he’d barely known she was alive, and her death came as a shock mainly because he had been
named her sole beneficiary; he had decided to sell his small flat in Islington and buy a larger property in central London. Property prices had been on the rise, as usual, but he’d made an
offer on the whole of a large terraced house in South Kensington which had been newly converted into four luxury apartments.
Even after selling his own flat, he had still been three hundred thousand pounds short when his offer was accepted, and so when he’d approached the Russians, he’d simply suggested
they might like to underwrite his mortgage for him. He’d taken out the necessary loan with his regular bank and one month after he’d made the first payment, the Russians had begun
paying an almost identical amount into an account in his name in the Cayman Islands. Statements of that account, to confirm the payments made, were sent to a post box which Stanway had rented in
London. The Russians were, in other words, buying his new property for him.
Stanway moved into the best of the apartments, the one on the top floor, and advertised the other properties for rent. Finding suitable tenants within the month, the rent he received from them
was more than twice what he was paying for his mortgage, and he had been able to increase the rent every year while his mortgage payments stayed more or less the same. Suddenly Stanway was a rich
man.
Then, after he assessed that the value of the information he was passing to the Russians had increased sufficiently, he suggested a further payment mechanism. As a result, the Russians set up a
dummy company in London and took out a ten-year lease on Stanway’s personal apartment, at some fifty per cent over the market rate, this extra percentage being in compensation for the
inevitable inconvenience that would be caused if and when the lease was executed. Written into the lease was an agreement that Stanway would vacate the premises within twenty-eight days after
receipt of a written notice to allow the director of the dummy company – who, of course, didn’t actually exist – to occupy the premises on demand.
Within two years of beginning his treacherous activities, Stanway’s declared income from his property speculation – and obviously not including the monies steadily accumulating in
his
directory structure, which he’d offered to the Russians as a shopping list, from which to choose the files they wanted to see.
The days when SIS officers were exempt from the payment of income tax were long gone, and nowadays officers receive an index-linked salary based upon the fairly modest scales set by the
Treasury. Stanway’s lucrative activities as a mole allowed him to enjoy a lifestyle that was opulent rather than comfortable but, unlike Aldrich Ames, he had always been more than happy to
explain to anyone curious enough to ask exactly how his wealth was earned.
He had realized, right from the start of his information-broking ‘career’, that the principal danger of his being detected would probably not come from anything as mundane as a spot
check as he left Vauxhall Cross, but far more likely from the Inland Revenue. That was possible if he suddenly began spending money he couldn’t account for – and Stanway had every
intention of spending his money.
The occasional sale of information to minor nations like Libya had been paid for in cash, money that he kept in a safety-deposit box at his bank, to be spent gradually and discreetly, usually in
buying readily convertible assets, like paintings, antique furniture, good-quality diamonds, watches and the like.
But his first and best customers were the Russians, and with them he had developed a payment system that seemed foolproof, or at least as foolproof as any system ever could be. With a genuine
inheritance of over half a million pounds, after tax, from an aunt some ten years earlier – he’d barely known she was alive, and her death came as a shock mainly because he had been
named her sole beneficiary; he had decided to sell his small flat in Islington and buy a larger property in central London. Property prices had been on the rise, as usual, but he’d made an
offer on the whole of a large terraced house in South Kensington which had been newly converted into four luxury apartments.
Even after selling his own flat, he had still been three hundred thousand pounds short when his offer was accepted, and so when he’d approached the Russians, he’d simply suggested
they might like to underwrite his mortgage for him. He’d taken out the necessary loan with his regular bank and one month after he’d made the first payment, the Russians had begun
paying an almost identical amount into an account in his name in the Cayman Islands. Statements of that account, to confirm the payments made, were sent to a post box which Stanway had rented in
London. The Russians were, in other words, buying his new property for him.
Stanway moved into the best of the apartments, the one on the top floor, and advertised the other properties for rent. Finding suitable tenants within the month, the rent he received from them
was more than twice what he was paying for his mortgage, and he had been able to increase the rent every year while his mortgage payments stayed more or less the same. Suddenly Stanway was a rich
man.
Then, after he assessed that the value of the information he was passing to the Russians had increased sufficiently, he suggested a further payment mechanism. As a result, the Russians set up a
dummy company in London and took out a ten-year lease on Stanway’s personal apartment, at some fifty per cent over the market rate, this extra percentage being in compensation for the
inevitable inconvenience that would be caused if and when the lease was executed. Written into the lease was an agreement that Stanway would vacate the premises within twenty-eight days after
receipt of a written notice to allow the director of the dummy company – who, of course, didn’t actually exist – to occupy the premises on demand.
Within two years of beginning his treacherous activities, Stanway’s declared income from his property speculation – and obviously not including the monies steadily accumulating in
his
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