Michael Smith - Six: The Real James Bonds 1909-1939

I am grateful to some indefatigable researchers into the secret archives for their assistance in this project, most notably David List, but also Phil Tomaselli, Nick Hiley, Yuri Totrov, Rolf Dahl, Craig McKay, Andrew Cook, Yigal Sheffy, Ann Trevor, Nina Staehle and Oliver Lrscher. I am also grateful to Richard Cafferata, Roger Fairholme, Shirley Durrant, Hannah Charnock, and Edward and Susan Harding-Newman, Henrik Sinding-Larsen, Yolande Whittall, Elizabeth Moulson, Molly Megson, Ian Sumner, James Stephens, Jonathan Wadman, Hollie Teague, John Schwartz, Sylvia Vetta, Robert Kirby, Charlotte Knee, and last, but certainly by no means least, my wife Hayley and my children Ben, Kirsty, Louise, Leila and Levin.

JOHN Merrett slouched along the Nevsky Prospekt, a big scruffy bear of a man hugging the stucco walls, his attempt to merge into the background assisted only by the dingy surroundings and the lack of street lights. The agents of the Cheka, the Extraordinary Commission, were everywhere and there was said to be a substantial price on his head, although the likelihood of anyone who went to the Cheka getting any money seemed remote.

Once the Nevsky had been one of the most fashionable streets in the world; now its cafs and shops were shuttered against the misery imposed by the Soviets. Here and there a huddle of men gathered around a hawker selling half-rotten vegetables, or hacked at the carcass of a horse driven into the ground by an owner with too little food for himself, let alone a nag.

Merrett had once been one of the smartest businessmen in St Petersburg, clean shaven with a frock coat, top hat, twirling cane and a sparkle in his eye. Not now. To all outward appearances, he looked like a tramp, a man hidden even from himself. It was a false picture. Merrett was very far from the withdrawn, shabby image he presented to the outside world. He was simply doing a job. Jim Gillespie had left him with firm orders to look after the British spy networks. He was determined to stick to what he saw as his patriotic duty. Hed never been a spy, never trained for it, but someone had to do it. Why not him?

At first, Merrett disguised himself with a thick red beard. Then one of the agents in the British network got rattled and gave him up. Merrett only escaped the Cheka agents by jumping out of a window and shinning down a drainpipe, but they managed to grab his wife Lydia. As if he didnt have enough on his plate, now he worried constantly for her safety and what they might persuade her to say of him.

With the Cheka knowing he had a beard, hed shaved it off, but the stubble was growing back. He badly needed a shave, though probably now it didnt matter one way or another. They knew him with or without a beard. If they couldnt find him, they could do nothing to harm him or the networks. So he kept on moving, never sleeping in the same place twice, adopting the pseudonym Ivan Ivanovich, Russias equivalent of John Bull.

It was grinding work, collecting the intelligence, paying the agents and, most difficult of all, in the midst of the Red Terror, keeping them calm. Hundreds,thousands, of Russians had been taken from their homes and some would not be going home ever again. Small wonder the agents were jittery. Babysitting was how Gillespie put it, and at times thats what it felt like. The MI1c man had promised him before he went that someone would come soon to take over, a professional who wouldnt have to worry constantly if he were doing the right thing, or what the Bolsheviks were doing to his wife.

Merrett hoped the new man would come soon. The 200,000 roubles Gillespie gave him had long since run out. He and the agents were surviving on his savings and money loaned by the members of the citys British community he was getting to freedom. Hed just left another six of them waiting for an old woman in a white apron, who would collect them at dawn and pass them on to one of the couriers. Those were the boys running the real risks. They were paid to smuggle intelligence over the Finnish border, where Gillespie had set up shop waiting for them. They still did that no-one was going to argue that Merrett wasnt fulfilling his part of the bargain but hed had them running a different kind of package down the lines as well, more than 200 Britons all terrified of being scooped up by the Terror and left to rot in Butyrka prison.

As Merrett passed Meltzers furniture store, its windows boarded up to protect what little was left, a hawker stepped out from the shadows in front of him and he recognised one of the agents.

Ivan Ivanovich, the man whispered, looking anxiously around, you have to come with me. The new fellows arrived. Hes looking for you. Says his names Paul Dukes.