The Blind Spy by Alex Dryden Page B

Moscow to commit terrorist acts specifically in Western countries deemed hostile by the Kremlin. Finally, it was brought up to the present day with several of Cougar’s inside agents’ accounts from Russia of how this training continued to be performed in the highly secret ‘Foreigners’ Area’ of the Russian intelligence services outside Moscow at Balashiha-2. One such trainee had been abducted by Cougar’s heavy boot brigade in Jordan and had given much interesting insight into the methods and purpose of such KGB training. This man was now under lock and key in one of Cougar’s private military bases in the United States. The report didn’t mention what kind of pressure the abducted man had been put under in order to get him to reveal the information.
    Pasconi was reading avidly, looking for objections. ‘No mention of Qubaq here,’ Pasconi said, looking up from the report.
    This was always going to be the most difficult moment for Logan to carry off. Burt had refused to put the name in writing. Logan found that disturbing. Did the group really have a connection, Logan wondered, or was Burt just unsure? And why, anyway, did Burt want the CIA’s resources? Cougar had more than enough of its own. Normally, in fact, Burt strained to keep the CIA at arm’s length from Cougar’s operations. This was evidently one of Burt’s long and opaque games, and he hadn’t given Logan any more information than was in the file and in his personal briefing to Logan.
    ‘There’s hearsay, there’s rumour, there’s suggestion and, finally, there’s the record of the KGB’s activities in this field,’ Logan said and pointed casually at the file. ‘All of that is what, initially, an intelligence agency needs to pay attention to. That is how an alert comes into existence and how ultimately the evidence will be found. This group needs to be on a watch list – at the very least.’
    ‘Bit circumstantial, isn’t it?’ Pasconi said.
    ‘Follow every lead, Sandra.’ Logan smiled in acknowledgement. ‘That’s been our country’s mistake in the past. Leaving stones unturned.’
    Pasconi in turn looked absolutely furious that Logan addressed her once again by her first name.
    MacLeod put his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together. ‘Perhaps when you see Burt Miller, you’d tell him that we aren’t exactly idle here,’ he said coldly. ‘And we aren’t exactly stupid. So. If Russia is going to get what it wants with a new president of Ukraine,’ he said, ‘assuming Yanukovich wins in three weeks, then why would it be going to the trouble of stirring things up?’
    ‘Cougar is working with evidence that it is stirring things up,’ Logan replied. ‘Read the report, Sam.’
    ‘Seeing as how you’re just the messenger boy here, perhaps you’d convey my question anyway,’ MacLeod said dismissively.
    After the meeting had broken up, Logan left the embassy and walked into the freezing night. He decided to continue walking rather than take a taxi. He admitted to himself that pinning the agency’s station chief to the wall like a captured butterfly had caused him a rush of adrenalin-filled satisfaction that came from his resentment at the treatment meted out to him by the CIA ten years before. But this rush was quickly followed by enervation and finally a feeling of emptiness. MacLeod’s parting jibe didn’t help his falling mood. For that was exactly how he felt himself to be – Burt Miller’s messenger boy. While all the time, Burt’s favoured individual, Anna Resnikov, seemed to get all the glamorous, headline-grabbing jobs. One day he wanted to be Burt. But all the glory at Cougar nowadays went to her, his one-night stand in New York two years before, who had then cast him off. Unlike Burt treated him, Burt treated her as an equal.
    Once he had shaken off the hostility and unfrozen the atmosphere of the meeting in the freezing cold outside he was left with a feeling of deep discontent. Burt didn’t