25. A Lucky Cold War Arrest
Once he arrived at the police station, the drunk driver refused to take a breathalyzer, give a urine or blood sample, or otherwise cooperate. His name was Oleg Lyalin, a trade representative employed at the Soviet embassy. He lacked diplomatic immunity, so he was charged with drunk driving, placed in a cell to sleep it off, and taken before a magistrate for a hearing the following morning. Representatives of the Soviet Trade Delegation showed up and paid his bail of £50, but officer Shearer had the distinct impression that Mr. Lyalin did not want to leave the court with them.
Instead, MI5, Britain’s domestic counterintelligence and security service – the equivalent of the FBI’s spy catchers – showed up and took him into their custody. As it turned out, Lyalin had already been on the radar of British intelligence. They had tried to blackmail him to switch sides by threatening to expose an affair he was having with his secretary – most likely the blond who had bolted out of his car. The arrest gave them an opportunity to whisk him to a safe house, where they had all the time in the world to try and convince him to defect. They succeeded.
