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Before we begin, a huge thank you to listeners Hazel, Brian and Mike, who requested that the Spy Who tells the tale of Oleg Gordievsky.

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July 1985, 240pm, the Soviet Union.

In a forest near the border with Finland,

KGB officer turned British agent Oleg Gordievsky

lies in the damp undergrowth.

A few meters in front of him is a highway lay by.

He checks his watch, then strains his ears,

hoping for the sound of a car turning

off the highway. Gordievsky has spent the past few days evading KGB surveillance in what is

probably a futile attempt to escape Soviet Russia. Britain's Foreign Intelligence Service,

MI6, has never successfully extracted a Russian agent from

the USSR, let alone one under near constant scrutiny.

And Gordievsky's rescuers are late.

The silence stretches unbearably.

Feeling dehydrated, Gordievsky swigs the last of the beer he brought with him,

then tosses the bottle into the undergrowth.

Shit!

Gordievsky curses his carelessness.

His fingerprints are on that beer bottle.

He draws himself to his feet, then plunges his hands into the bracken until his fingers meet the smooth glass.

...