Kompromat

‘So how do we persuade Wilbur Brown to take another look at this?’ Galina asked. ‘Some piece of Kompromat, perhaps? Something that might persuade him to change his mind?’

‘We have nothing on Brown,’ Yuri Yasonov said. ‘He’s squeaky clean. And we don’t have enough time anyway to set up a Kompromat scenario, even assuming Brown would fall for it, which he probably wouldn’t.’

‘So what do we do now?’ Galina Aslanova asked.

‘I checked with President Popov this morning. He thinks it’s time for Plan B. Our last best hope to swing this before it’s too late.’

‘Plan B!’ Galina exclaimed. ‘Don’t we always say, “there is no Plan B”?’

‘Well, there is this time,’ Yasonov replied.

Julius Lomax, former congressman for Massachusetts 9th Congressional District, had form. A few years earlier, he had had to resign his seat in the House because of a ‘sexting’ scandal but he was still addicted to this particular form of entertainment.

His wife, Sandra, one of Caroline Mann’s principal aides, had left early for work. His two kids were at school, he had lost his job and he had time on his hands. Only that morning he had met up online with a schoolgirl from Champagne, Illinois, whom he felt, with a bit of help, might be ready to share some of his wilder fantasies.

He typed a brief, lewd message into his smartphone. He had an appropriate photo of himself all ready to upload.

In Moscow, 4,500 miles away from Boston, Galina Aslanova gave a thumbs-up sign as the message pinged into her inbox. ‘Bingo,’ she said. ‘He’s hooked.’

The KSB Moscow office had very kindly supplied a variety of photos of teenage girls in their underwear, all waiting to be uploaded. Galina quickly selected one and pinged it back.

Lyudmila Markova, tough, ferocious Lyudmila, stood behind her with her own mobile, videoing the exchange. Some of these ‘sexting apps’ had self-delete programmes, as soon as the exchange ended, so you had to take care to make real-time recordings.

‘We need to fire him up a bit,’ Markova said. ‘Send him a boob shot. Here what about that one? She’s young and pert and pretty. I wouldn’t mind her myself. I wonder where they found her?’

Seconds later, Julius Lomax fired back. ‘Great! Loved it. What’s the weather like in Champagne? It’s pretty cloudy here in Boston.’

Galina Aslanova didn’t answer that one immediately. ‘Could be a trap,’ she whispered. ‘He may be checking that I really am in Illinois.’

She Googled: ‘What’s the weather in Illinois today?’

‘Actually, it’s unseasonably warm here today,’ she typed. ‘With highs in the upper seventies.’

Lyudmila punched her: ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t send that. You’re meant to be under fourteen. Talk like a teenager, not like the weatherman!’

‘The weather here’s great’, Galina tried again. ‘You may think this photo’s great too.’

Within seconds the former congressman sent what he considered was his finest literary effort so far: ‘I can’t help thinking about your pretty little pussy.’

Later that morning, Galina Aslanova phoned Yuri Yasonov.

‘I think we’ve got what we need,’ she said.

‘Attagirl!’ Yasonov replied.

Less than two hours later, the Selkirk Clarion, America’s biggest-selling national newspaper, published both online and in print a series of messages sent by former congressman Julius Lomax to an underage girl in Champagne, Illinois, although fortunately they kept this as a one-sided conversation with words suggestively blanked out.

Within an hour the FBI succeeded in obtaining a court order permitting it to seize and examine Lomax’s mobile and laptop as well.

In seeking the warrant, the FBI indicated it would not only be looking for illegal activity involving the grooming and exploitation of a minor for sexual purposes. It also asked the permission of the court to undertake a complete forensic analysis and review of the files on Lomax’s laptop.

The FBI argued that such a review ‘will also allow the FBI to determine if there is any evidence of computer intrusions into the subject laptop, and to determine if classified information was accessed by unauthorized users or transferred to any other unauthorized systems’.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Harry Stokes, foreign secretary, called his political adviser, a bright and bubbly young man called Owen Griffiths, into his grand office overlooking St James’s Park for an urgent discussion.