Flashbacsks

Flashbacks I

"Sic Transit Gloria Mundi"

An excerpt

His ex boss switched on the tape, and turned to Scot that was sitting buried in his thoughts in one of the armchairs.

'Well let's have it ' Thurston ordered him with a hint of impatience.

'According to my briefing I was supposed to meet a certain dissident In Moscow's memorial museum of cosmonautics.' Scot opened up coughing slightly. 'There was no fixed date and time, as it's a huge museum with several different department and a library, visiting day in day out a couple of successive weeks shouldn't arise suspicion. I'd of course to behave like an ordinary tourist, and visit some other famous museum of art for instance; and other sites of touristic interest at the same time. I was followed right after I landed just like any other foreigner in Moscow, but they should have realized that I'm clean as long as I haven't met any Russian citizen… But then Jeff arrived and called my room at my hotel with instructions, which didn't cope with the basic rules and my briefing. I didn't expect to meet him in Russia, and his arrival has exposed me for truth sake.' Scot could not avoid that dramatic note, remembering how exasperated he was when he went down and met Jeff in his hotel lobby at the second week of his stay, and realized that Jeff brought in his wake two SVR agents; and one of those agents pulled out a camera and started to shoot openly their meeting.

'When did he appear?' Thurston asked intrigued.

'He popped up one evening in my hotel at the end of my second week there.'

'That's rather interesting, because he was supposed to meet you in West Berlin, after your third week in Moscow if you wouldn't have met your contact man. In that case he'd to brief you for your second mission to try and get in touch with a local dissident in Riga, that's what was reported to me.'

And I'm sure that it was Morgan who updated him with disinformation in fact, his own deputy.

'He spent the next couple of weeks with me in Moscow. When we sat in my hotel lobby I told him "listen Mac that's how he introduced himself when he called my hotel room, we're under surveillance, you're sitting with your back to two of them. I didn't want to tell him that I'd no doubt they followed him be it from the airport, or his hotel if he was already in Moscow…' Scot made a short pause exhaling the air caught in his lungs. 'You won't believe it sir; he turned around and looked at them like someone that has no knowledge in clandestine activity. Well he turned around back and said "relax Gregory I've checked surveillance and I'm clean, and those two are members of the hotel staff."

'How many times have you met after that first meeting, and where?'

'Two more times during my third week in Moscow, again in my hotel's lobby; and one more in which we planned a mutual surveillance check, and during my fourth week he called from the airport I guess and ordered me to leave without delay.'

'I see,' Thurston muttered with obvious embarrassment. 'What was his excuse to meet you again?' Thurston wished to make things clear up to the last detail.

'He said he wants to know if

 I still believe that I'm being followed. I told him that from my first meeting with him I'm under open surveillance, he didn't believe me. I said to him if up to his unexpected appearance I was followed by at least two teams, which kept changing to avoid exposure, now I'm harassed by one single team that has no need to hide under some innocent cover…'

'Did they try to have a verbal contact with you?'

'No sir, but they brushing against me, laugh in my face and mutter from time to time details of my personal life and my career with the agency…'

'What kind of details that you identified as your own?'

'Well my last girl friend's name, my college, my hometown, my rank and my last missions' whereabouts; it seemed to me that my personal file details were leaked to them, whether by a human error or a supposedly human error.'

'Jeff flew a week before you, but was supposed to land in Riga and wait for you there, he must have landed in Moscow without my knowledge.' Thurston remarked with a slight cough.

© Haim Kadman June 2015 �" all rights reserved.

The 16 thrillers and novels that I've already published, are available to read with Kindle Unlimited in the U.S, U.K., Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Brazil, Mexico and Canada and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) in the U.S, U.K., Germany, France, and Japan; or to download for a reasonable price.cc and Canada and the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) in the U.S, U.K., Germany, France, and Japan; or to download for a reasonable price.

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