ONE
The spy in the cold

How the hell do you track down a spy in Moscow, a metropolis of 14 million
residents, 7 million cars and 203 metro stations? It might have been the stamping
ground of spying and counter-intelligence during the Cold War but these days
it’s a city on steroids where super-rich oligarchs buy Greek islands and London
football clubs and commission Jennifer Lopez to perform at the weddings of
their offspring. Soaring skyscrapers stand side by side with granite feats of
Stalinist architecture, and Mercedes-Maybachs and Aston Martins roar past the
remnants of boxy Ladas on six-lane highways.
What has happened to the armies of snoops and spooks who floated like ghouls
across Red Square with bulges in their pockets and poison-tipped umbrellas in
their hands; and who concocted conspiracies in hushed voices in stolovayas –
Soviet government canteens – while gulping down stinky kolbasa sausages with
Moskovskaya vodka?
I had just spent a substantial amount of money on an air ticket, subjected
myself to a torturous flight across three continents and abandoned my new life as
a chef and restaurateur in the hope of tracking down a former South African spy
who I believed had a hell of a story to tell. I was like a rehabilitated drug addict
who after two years of abstinence was about to stick a needle in my arm and
propel heroin through my veins. I was attempting to do exactly what I had
vowed never to do again: immerse myself in the seamy world and fortunes of
low-lifes and charlatans, fraudsters and crooks, conmen and swindlers.
I was beset by a mixture of guilt, doubt and apprehension when we approached
Moscow’s Domodedovo International Airport. Under the belly of the Emirates
Airbus was mounted a camera that beamed pictures of the landscape to the
television screen on the back of the seat in front of me.