Kompromat

‘On or off, it doesn’t matter. You’re safe in here. You might as well be buried at the bottom of the ocean. The Americans call this a SCIF – a Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility. That’s their jargon. We just call it our “safe room”. Of course, we’ve got a much bigger one at the Embassy in Smolenskaya Street. We use that for larger gatherings. This one’s just for my own personal use as ambassador.’

If Barnard was intrigued, and possibly slightly alarmed, by the degree of precaution the ambassador seemed to be taking before talking to him, he gave no sign of it. He had known Boles a long time. Even though Boles had entered the diplomatic service while Barnard had gone into politics, the two men had often had occasion to meet, socially as well as professionally.

‘I need your help, Andrew,’ Barnard began. ‘As you probably know, I’ve been lucky enough to spend some time – almost on a one-to-one basis – with President Popov. I saw him at the Tiger Conference in St Petersburg where, I have to say, he performed brilliantly. I saw him again in the Ussuri forest on the tiger hunt, which ended, rather bizarrely with Popov firing a tranquillizing dart into Ron Craig’s backside.’

Sir Andrew Boles uttered a short, explosive laugh. ‘Yes, we heard about that.’

‘Well, while Craig was recovering in hospital, Popov and I had a quiet dinner in the hotel. It wasn’t just the two of us because Yuri Yasonov was there.’

‘Ah, Yuri Yasonov. The power behind the throne.’ Boles commented. ‘One of the cleverest young men in Russia.’

‘He’s forty.’

‘I still call that young. I wouldn’t mind being forty again.’

They got down to business.

Barnard took the flash-drive out of his pocket and laid it on the table in front of them. ‘I don’t want to be caught with this as I go through airport security, either here in Moscow or in London,’ he said. ‘So I’m just wondering if you could send it on to me in the diplomatic bag.’

‘Something hot then?’

‘So hot, I’m not sure how to handle it.’

Boles picked up the flash-drive. ‘You’ve taken a look at this already, have you? Was that wise?’

‘No, I’m sure it wasn’t wise, but I couldn’t resist it. I stuck the stick in my laptop in my hotel room in Khabarovsk and ran quickly through the files.’

‘What do you think you have?’

‘Something pretty explosive, to say the least. There’s a cache of emails here, some with scanned documents attached. Most of the emails have either been sent to, or sent from, the Office of the prime minister in Number 10 Downing Street. They cover the period October 2012 to around August 2015.’

‘What’s so significant?’

‘The early part of 2013 was precisely when Jeremy Hartley was preparing his Bloomberg speech on Europe.’

‘Well, let’s take a look,’ Boles said.

For the next hour, in the sanctuary of the safe house on the second floor of the Kharitonenko Mansion, Sir Andrew Boles and Edward Barnard MP ran through the documents on the flash-drive.

From time to time, Barnard – who had the advantage of having already reviewed the material at his leisure – permitted himself a comment.

‘Remember how long it took for Hartley’s Bloomberg speech to materialize. Look, here’s a memo – dated November 2012 – from the PM’s Private Office to the foreign secretary’s Private Office. See what Humphrey Smallwood says, and Humphrey, as we all know, as head of the Private Office, doesn’t speak without the authority of the PM: “The PM is not, absolutely not, repeat not, inclined to include any kind of a commitment to holding a Referendum in his Europe speech”.’ Barnard continued: ‘So one deadline passes, then another. Then suddenly, at the beginning of January 2013, things change.’

He flipped quickly through a series of emails. ‘It’s not always clear who is writing to whom about what at this point. But what is clear is that something is going on. There are frequent references to “PM’s telecon with our friends”, whoever “our friends” are. Even though the language is usually very circumspect, there are a couple of emails here, which, in my humble opinion, are quite conclusive. Look at this one.’

Barnard read out the text as it appeared on the screen in front of them: ‘Please note that this email is sent to Fred Malkin, Conservative Party chairman. “PM is prepared to settle for latest proposal, so we will aim to include appropriate reference in Bloomberg speech. Our friends are talking in terms of £10 million, possibly £12 million”.’

‘Good heavens!’ Ambassador Boles was beginning to take in the full implications of the material on the flash-drive.