4-5-24
Dear Partners in Thought,
I wanted to share with you some thoughts on “Moscow X”, the second spy novel (after “Damascus Station”) from David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst that many see as the new John Le Carré. It is clear that his background made McCloskey a very credible writer in a genre that we all thought we knew, but where he lends current credibility as times have also evolved. Today’s short Book Note stresses the novel’s key features and those of its author that have led to so many plaudits across the range of not just well-known novelists and current affairs journalists, but also retired intelligence professionals. While I will emphasize its key features, I will also let you discover and fully enjoy the book.
“Moscow X”, the name of a new Langley-based CIA entity focused on Russia and its key decision-makers, is about an operation to “compromise” one of the private bankers to Vladimir Putin and create upheaval at the top of the Kremlin. It is rather global in its set-up and deals in great details on what we can assume are current operational and structural features of intelligence agencies both in the US and Russia. It also describes the direct and blurred link between former and current intelligence leaders in Russia with massive wealth. Putin, known to be a multi-billionaire (as widely reported by the late Alexei Navalny) was of course a former KGB officer, while the Deputy President and Chairman of the Executive Board of VTB, one of the leading state-owned Russian banks, is none other than the son of Aleksandr Bortnikov, the head of the FSB since 2008.
The similarity to John Le Carré is clear when reading the description of how CIA (and not “the CIA” in casual insider talk) works internally in a way that reminds some of us of “Smiley’s People” or “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy” which we also saw on screens small and big with Alec Guinness and Gary Oldman. Some of us discover that intelligence officers as such need not to be citizens of their country’s agencies or even “official” – as in the case of Max, a Mexican horse trader – or Hortensia – a top London corporate lawyer – both working with and for CIA. In a similar tone, Anna, a Russian banker, also would appear to work for the SVR, the foreign Russian intelligence agency, conveniently mixing professional role and at times family business. All three are NOCs or agents with non-official covers who actually operate in covert roles for their intelligence platforms.
The style is a bit different from traditional spy novels, with many words and sayings of our times, often “hard ones”, while the writing is very descriptive and indeed detailed as was John Le Carré in his novels (on a personal note, I ran into him as David Cornwell, our neighbor and nearby pub goer in Hampstead in 1993. It was fun as he enjoyed being recognized but kept a naturally low profile as George Smiley would). It can make for an arduous read at times, as one needs to focus, also as the interactions between the main characters are plenty – even if at times unexpected. One could find the story of a fight between two wealthy Russians, both having worked in top roles at the old KGB and then FSB, a bit unexpected, while the various developments putting together unusual adversaries are very entertaining, again in the detailed background that McCloskey puts in place. One feature which is strong (and probably real) is how tiny and interconnected the Russian elite is across societal segments with a direct link to Putin and often his native “Piter” (Saint Petersburg).
Money linked to “obedience first” seems to be everywhere in all of Russia’s power structure, which would not be a surprise. And that kleptocracy is often helped by the belief that the individuals concerned simply convince themselves that they “hold” the money for Russia itself in a quasi-patriotic mission. A good and known example in real life may be Igor Sechin, who had no experience of the oil industry but was very close to Putin and is today the long-serving CEO, President and Chairman of Rosneft, a leading Russian oil producer. “Moscow X” shows an FSB-flavored Moscow society and its “cameras everywhere” controlling people actually willing to be controlled as a small price to live very well. Another key feature is the description of intelligence operations and their minute preparations, indeed in contemporary George Smiley ways (including being able to be ready to adjust to the Russian elite’s drinking habits whatever their hidden rationale for them at times). One also discovers the challenging TOTT process or Tier One Target Tradecraft that new CIA agents need to go through in Northern Virginia in order to be operationally ready and also fully confirmed as CIA.
Without revealing much, the book’s main story, while being focused on compromising a key Putin private banker, starts when a senior FSB-flavored Russian, also in the Kremlin, seizes gold bars from a former colleague and schoolmate, also very wealthy now as a top horse farmer, who had married his ex-wife. It is an unusual start for a spy thriller, showing unexpected tensions within the Russian elite. Anna, the daughter of the “victim” is working at Bank Rossiya, a well-known Russian bank but is also an SVR NOC intelligence operative and will do her best to get daddy’s money back. In doing so she approaches a London law firm reputed for dealing with “Russian money” even in our times of sanctions as the story is taking place today. (Let us not forget, with all due respect to many English friends, that London or indeed Mayfair was also known in some parts as “Londongrad”, as seen in an old Book Note “Rich Russians”, and the home to many financial and legal advisers for which morality may not be a key driver). Anna is, of course, aware that the London law firm is dealing with laundering the gold for “Goose”, one of the top Kremlin insiders, and her father’s former FSB rival and now enemy.
What she does not know is that lawyer Hortensia (she only goes by Sia – beware as she is rather jumpy on that one) is also CIA NOC, while being with Afrikaans roots and a former member of a Palo alto tech start-up close to Langley. Sia will team up with Max, a third generation CIA operative from Mexico who is also officially managing his horse-trading platform in San Cristobal. They will get Anna and her husband Vadim, who is the son of the former leader of Bank Rossiya, to join them in Mexico for a horse-buying visit as a prelude to compromising the latter, indeed one of Putin’s private bankers. All while Anna, not initially realizing the true nature of Sia, will be trying to recruit her for the SVR while she is looking for her to recoup her horse farming ex-FSB father’s gold.
Following San Cristobal, Sia and Max will then go together to Russia under commercial horse-trading cover to fulfill their mission, not knowing but “guessing” about Anna’s true role – it is Russia after all – while the latter not knowing theirs at that point. The dual roles of the main characters are funny and almost unrealistic but makes for a great and evolving complex plot that one needs to focus on in order to keep track of the compelling story.
As a parting gift, and perhaps an inducement to read this book, I will give you Anna’s take on the Russian ruler, also knowing she followed her then surprised father in his KGB and then FSB footsteps. “She’d come to think of Putin as many things all at once. An all-powerful Tsar and the cheerless manager of an unruly system larger than himself. A despot and an issuer of vague, sometimes ignored guidance. A new public idol and a private source of jokes and snickers. He was former KGB Second Directorate, after all (note: not First Directorate, the KGB elite). A thug (note: in his St Petersburg youth, for sure), not an artist like the foreign intelligence men around Papa. Like the rest of our country, she thought, he is proud and insecure, aggressive and pitiable, strong and weak. He was everything, he was nothing, but sometimes you had to give a damn about him as he was the center of the Russian world. The khozyain. Master. Without him the world did not spin. His existence was neither good nor bad. It just was.”
Finally, and as some of us struggle to understand Russia’s lack of what we take for rationality, failing to realize that it was never a democracy, Anna’s words are quite telling: “I am a patriot. I do not think you truly know this. Maybe as Americans you are incapable of understanding. I do not care that Putin rules our country. The Russian system has always been this way. One person at the top, everyone taking what they can. The activists and protesters mean nothing to me. I am a patriot”. Besides the great storytelling and the minute display of contemporary espionage craft, “Moscow X” tells the reader a lot about what Russia is today – simply a natural continuation of its never-changing history. I will now let you enjoy the read without uncovering the whole espionage tale and its many developments.
Warmest regards
Serge
Desperate Measures 