Page 77 - double revenge 3.

George smiled to himself.

He replaced the file and extracted another.

This one was not so formal. It was a letter rather than a formal file and its author was an old friend,
Viktor Balandin.

Viktor had lived in Berlin and worked for the KGB as an interpreter, he spoke several languages. He
was a Russian Jew, born in Russia but like all Russian Jews, never fully considered himself Russian.
Bryant was therefore easily able to turn him and got him to work for us. He regularly supplied very
important information. It must have been terrifying knowing that if he was ever caught
photographing documents he would be incarcerated in Lubyanka and would never come out again,
certainly not alive.

Viktor’s wife died leaving him with a baby son, Gregor. Being caught now assumed a much more

daunting prospect and he had asked to be withdrawn and be given asylum in the west.

George was Bryant’s Case Director based in the west of the city.

Bryant had deemed it too dangerous to bring a baby across to the West by a normal route. One cry,
one murmur on a cold evening and if they were in the middle of no man’s land, could bring a hail of
machine gun fire.

Instead, they concocted a request for a young child to be allowed across the divide, accompanied
by his uncle and the coffin of his father, to bury his father in Juedischer Friedhof Charlottenburg
cemetery alongside his wife.

It was an audacious deception but Bryant’s papers were genuine, he had stolen them from a
member of the East German Stasi Division of Garbage Analysis the department responsible for

analysing garbage for any suspect western foods and materials. This gave him a lot of clout,
especially over members of the army who might very easily come under his future investigations.

A very young child going to bury his father left few German Guards unmoved. Had they not been so
sympathetic and opened the coffin, they would have discovered a very much alive but sedated
Viktor hidden beneath the body of Günter Baumann, the former owner of Bryant’s Stasi papers.

Once in the West, Viktor was no longer an asset to British Intelligence, he held no secrets or

information but George had a deep sense of loyalty and enabled Viktor to receive asylum in
America.

When the American Liaison Department was formed, George put Viktor on the payroll. George now
had a section in America.

George read Viktor’s letter several times. Viktor believed a CIA paymaster’s office was being run by
a double. Apparently, he was in serious financial trouble and compulsively bet on college football
and basketball. Like all gamblers, he lost and in his case, he lost heavily. The only way he would be