The English Girl: A Novel

it.”
    But first, he added quickly, he had to attend another institute: the Red Banner Institute, the KGB’s Moscow training center. There he learned the basics of KGB tradecraft. Mainly, though, he learned how to recruit spies, which, for the KGB, was an excruciatingly slow, tightly controlled process lasting a year or more. His training complete, he was assigned to the Fifth Department of the First Chief Directorate and posted to Brussels. Several other Western European postings followed, until it became clear to Zhirov’s superiors at Moscow Center that he had a flair for the darker side of the trade. He was transferred to Department S, the unit that oversaw Soviet agents living “illegally” abroad. Later, he worked for Department V, the KGB division that handled mokriye dela .
    “Wet affairs,” said Gabriel.
    Zhirov nodded. “I wasn’t a trigger man like you, Allon. I was an organizer and planner.”
    “Did you ever run any false flag operations when you were at Department V?”
    “We ran them all the time,” Zhirov admitted. “In fact, false flags were standard operating procedure. We almost never moved against a target unless we could create a plausible cover story that someone else was behind it.”
    “How long were you at Department V?”
    “Until the end.”
    By that, he meant the end of the Soviet Union, which crumbled in December 1991. Almost overnight, the once-mighty superpower became fifteen separate countries, with Russia, the heart of the old union, the first among equals. The KGB was broken into two separate services. Before long, Moscow Center, once a cathedral of intelligence, fell on hard times. Cracks appeared in the exterior of the building, and the lobby was filled with uncollected trash. Unshaven officers in wrinkled clothing wandered the halls in an alcoholic daze.
    “There wasn’t even toilet paper in the men’s room,” Zhirov said, disgust creeping into his voice. “The entire place was a pigsty. And no one was in charge.”
    That changed, he said, when Boris Yeltsin finally exited the stage and the siloviki , men from the security services, took control of the Kremlin. Almost immediately, they ordered the SVR to increase operations against the United States and Great Britain, both nominal allies of the new Russian Federation. Zhirov was named the SVR’s new chief rezident in Washington, one of the most important posts in the service. But on the day he was supposed to depart Russia, he received a summons to the Kremlin. It seemed the president, an old colleague from the KGB, wanted a word.
    “I assumed he wanted to give me some parting instructions about how to handle my job in Washington,” Zhirov said. “But as it turned out, he had other plans for me.”
    “Volgatek,” said Gabriel.
    Zhirov nodded. “Volgatek.”
    T o understand what happened next, Zhirov said, it was first necessary to understand the importance of oil to Russia. He reminded his audience that, for decades, the Soviet Union was the world’s second-largest oil producer, trailing only Saudi Arabia and the emirates of the American-dominated Persian Gulf. The oil shocks of the 1970s and ’80s had been a boon to the wobbly Soviet economy—they were like a respirator, said Zhirov, that prolonged the life of the patient long after the brain had ceased functioning. The new Russian president understood what Boris Yeltsin had not, that oil could turn Russia into a superpower again. So he showed the oligarchs like Viktor Orlov the door and brought the entire Russian energy sector under effective Kremlin control. And then he started an oil company of his own.
    “KGB Oil and Gas,” said Gabriel.
    “More or less,” agreed Zhirov, nodding slowly. “But our company was to be different. We were tasked with acquiring drilling rights and downstream assets outside Russia. And we were KGB from top to bottom. In fact, a substantial percentage of our profits now flow directly into the accounts at Yasenevo.”
    “Where does the rest of it go?”
    “Use your imagination.”
    “Into the pockets of the Russian president?”
    “He didn’t get to be Europe’s richest man by wisely investing his KGB pension. Our president is worth about forty billion dollars, and much of his wealth comes from Volgatek.”
    “Whose idea was it to drill in the North Sea?”
    “It was his,” replied Zhirov. “He took it very personally. He said he wanted Volgatek to stick a straw into British territorial waters and suck on it