Francis Burton, head of Australian Security and Intelligence, waved Alan Kelsey to the vacant chair opposite his desk. Kelsey moved the chair slightly to one side, the afternoon Canberra sun was streaming in through the window and tended to hit Burton’s bald head and reflect sunlight in all directions. Having removed himself from the line of fire Kelsey sat down and raised one eyebrow.

      ‘You said it was urgent.’

      ‘I lied,’ responded Burton. ‘Urgent…no! But important – yes! It’s about Operation Weasel.’

      ‘Weasel?’ Kelsey raised one eyebrow. ‘Oh God! Is the bloody government on our backs again?’

      ‘No, it’s better than that. We’ve had a wire from CSIS in Ottawa, apparently a Russian defector has walked into their building with a sheaf of papers, computer discs and flash drives. I haven’t much more information than that as yet, but according to Esme Lewis of CSIS this chap…er…what’s his blasted name… hold on…Leonid Radchenko, used to work in Moscow Centre on their South Pacific desk and, amongst other things, apparently has information in his possession that could identify this bloody mole that we’ve suspected has been here for years.’

      ‘Who is it?’

      ‘We don’t know yet, I had their Assistant Director Ken Paget on the blower this morning. This Russian defector is being very cagey so far and is demanding guarantees, he’s holding onto as much of his information as he can until he gets what he wants, but Ken said that one hint he’s given is that there’s a Russian mole in the Canberra Defence Ministry and that he knows who he is.’

      Kelsey sat back and felt adrenalin surge through his system. In his capacity of Assistant Director-General Counter Terrorism and Counter Espionage this had been a problem he, and others, had been living with for over three years. Over that period of time ASIO had been aware that confidential information had been leaked out of government offices and passed to Moscow Centre and that the leak could only be in one of the government Ministries. They had received intelligence via London, who had their own sources of information from within the Russian administration, that information was being leaked to Moscow from Canberra. They also had some idea what class of information had gone walkabout, but despite trying to track those who had access to this information within Canberra so far nobody had been isolated or apprehended. According to the MI 5 and MI 6 sources the flow of information had slowed in recent months, which to Kelsey indicated that the mole could be aware of procedures being taken to track him down, and consequently had slowed his activities, but so far they had nothing to establish the mole’s identity.

      ‘How long before we have something concrete?’ he asked.

      ‘Depends what his demands are,’ snorted Burton. ‘No doubt he wants a free ticket to the United States, new identity, an expensive house and an unlimited supply of women.’

      ‘That sounds reasonable.’ commented Kelsey. ‘I’d probably ask for the same.’

      Burton chuckled and shuffled the papers on his deck.

      ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything, Alan.’