be with an arm of the KGB, which Special Forces ultimately were even though Zhilev’s unit came under the direct command of the Navy. One never knew where one’s career might lead and a detailed record of one’s past exploits was essential, even though it could be a double-edged weapon. The tide of power in Russia was a turbulent one and long before the wall came down those in privileged places knew a storm was brewing from within. Zhilev decided early on in his career that keeping such information and never needing it was better than the reverse.
There was a chill in the moist air, still not as cold as Riga at this time of year, but his well-built Russian boots protected his feet from the damp ground and his shaggy old sheepskin coat, a present from his brother to use on camping trips, kept his body warm. The only activity he had detected while standing in the wood was a handful of foraging muntjaks, the short-legged, plump little Asiatic deer that roamed these woods. Zhilev had not taken his original route across the forest from the old agent drop-off point but had walked through the wood, keeping parallel with the road, from the garage on the roundabout three-quarters of a mile away where he had left his car parked among many others so it would not be noticed.
It had been a tiring journey from Riga to Ostende but he had managed to snatch a solid hour’s sleep during the short ferry crossing to England. Apart from his usual aching neck, he felt quite good. Perhaps it was the rush of being on an operation once again, even though it was not an official mission sanctioned by his government. But it would be the biggest operation he had ever undertaken, by far; much bigger than ferrying agents into Europe through Swedish locks using mini-subs, or a bodyguard to Gorbachev in Reykjavik and Malta, or ferrying weapons and explosives into Palestine and Lebanon and operators into Afghanistan.This mission had not been planned and prepared by him but by Spetsnaz, and was a long-standing operation which had been in position for the past thirty years, and maintained and trained for in the event it was needed. Zhilev had some variations to the plan, of course. The target for one.
It had taken him no more than a day to adjust and update the operation to his needs after thoroughly going over the report he had kept, along with several others, in a large metal box under the stairs. The only factors that could pose a problem were changes caused by time, erosion and, of course, by the FSB, the Federal Security Service which had replaced the KGB after the end of the Cold War. It was possible that operations of this nature had been dismantled but Zhilev considered it unlikely. There were clues that operational commitments against the West had not changed, comments he had heard on television or read in newspapers and on the Internet from politicians and high-ranking military personnel, which suggested many attitudes and suspicions about the West remained for the most part unchanged. The West appeared to have fallen under the illusion that with the end of the Cold War, Russian espionage and war and counter-war plans had been shelved or dismantled. To the contrary, if anything, there had been a general increase in spying and military planning and contingencies immediately after Yeltsin took command. If people in the West thought that because the wall had come down and a fledgling democracy was growing in Russia, it had changed its mind about Western greed and expansionism and no longer suspected its duplicitous and underhanded ways, they were sadly mistaken. In the old days, expansionism was about land and the fulcrum of political control. Now it was all about economic empires and controlling them, but many of the ways and means of achieving goals remained the same. The country with the biggest stick made the rules and broke them when it suited, and Russia was not about to fall behind if it could help it. Zhilev felt confident everything in the forest was how he had left it all those years ago and that he would find what he was looking for. He had nothing to lose by carrying out a reconnaissance, and everything to gain if he was right.
Zhilev was not here for any political, economic or military gain. His motivation was an ancient one and second only to