Wonderry Plus subscribers can binge full seasons of the Spy Who early and add free on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. 1979, KGB headquarters, Moscow.

KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky yorns and gloomily regards the thick books and musty files that cover his desk.

Boredom weighs down his every limb.

His head droops to the desk. He returned to Moscow a year ago

from an overseas posting in Copenhagen, but his decision to divorce his wife and marry his

mistress has not gone down well with his superiors. While his home life is much happier, his career is in freefall.

He used to be a high flyer, earmarked as a future department deputy. Now he's been tasked with writing a

history of the KGB. Although he remains a senior officer, it's a non-job for a man going nowhere fast.

A task that leaves him in the dark about active operations.

Not that it matters.

He's now cut off from his British spy masters.

Before returning to Moscow, he agreed with MI6 that they would not attempt to contact him.

But this isolation only deepens his sense of loneliness and alienation.

He snaps his head up as a colleague knocks on his door.

Grushko wants us in the meeting room now.

Why?

His colleague shrugs and walks on.

Gordievsky, now alert, follows his fellow KGB officers into a large room.

They settle into the rows of chairs that have been set up.

Standing facing them all is Victor Grushko, the silver-haired head of the KGB's British and Scandinavian department.

He's usually cheerful, but today he wears a grave expression.

Comrades, I'm disappointed to say that one of our long-standing and valuable agents in the

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