Insider

He was born in Vladivostok, lived in Moscow for some years, most of them while training and now was in Houston. He got used with that calm ranch located at the borders of the city. He didn’t want to call attention for himself. He couldn’t call attention for himself.

Whoever passed through the area wouldn’t suspect about the truth. And, let’s face it, almost nobody passed through the area. And if someone did so, it would be some guy lost in the road, asking about the way to Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.

The few people who spoke to that humble foreign farmer because of his accent would be certain to speak with a French. That was just thanks to his training. It would be impossible turn Russian into American accent quickly. However, the add of the french accent was enough to muddle the people from that country.

He was the perfect insider in an impeccable disguise. He always said that for being a secret agent it was crucial to be a discreet agent. There were cases of good professionals uncovered by their own vanity. All they wanted to do was to be on the elite positions, stepping into the events of high society. He was not like that at all. He was famous for not chasing the fame. In his mind, that separates the good ones from the great ones. The focus on work instead of the focus on yourself.

Talented and focused on his duty, he always followed the most cautious rules from the organisation. That’s why his only source of information was official letters. Documents each time less frequent to arrive, not seldomly missing for months, until finally reach his PO Box. Newspapers, radio and TV were useless in that western country. No one should trust the lark built by the Americans, telling about the greatest country in the world. For him, it was all about the technical and unquestionable data sent by the high command.

His routine laid on getting the milk from the cows, fishing on the San Jacinto river and exercising… Nothing aside from ordinary. He didn’t need much to live and was already used to the diet of wines, cheese, coffee and cigarettes, all started to build his French role. The character was so strong inside him that at this point it was impossible to turn apart creation from creator. A side effect was most welcome to serve for a greater cause.

The activities in the ranch were far from his real intentions. The space race was running fast. Just like some countries sailed to conquest and colonize the world, it was time to conquest and colonize the outer space. And in order to help the USSR, he was in the right neighbourhood.

Once in a while, he could get a job inside the space complex, mainly to make construction works. He couldn’t reveal the fact of being a spacial engineer himself that was able to understand everything going on around. To fulfil his mission, he already painted the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center and helped to modernize the Building 30.

The reason for such an effort had nothing to do with the good income for each job. He had plenty of it when he arrived in this country. Besides it, only the mediocre work for a thing as common as money. In his vision, everything that has a price is too cheap. And cash is so cheap that already comes with its pressed price.

So, it was not for paying his bills that from times to times he showed up in the spacial complex, but for sneaking around the place. Sometimes it was just too easy. Once, an engineer asked him to hold his space plans while going to the toilet. When it comes about national security, the Americans seems to be more sharped in their speech than in their actions.

There was one time he was nearly uncovered, when found inside a big bin. An engineer passing by saw that foreign man wearing clothes dirty by painting and getting all messed up when trying to explain what was he doing right there. The good engineer felt sorry for the situation and gave 2 dollars for him to eat something clean in the canteen.

He came back home proud. That 2 dollars worthing much more than 2 dollars, because it came along with the plans for the next NASA mission. Plans that once again would be redrawn in a smart code form. He couldn’t trust postmen. He couldn’t trust almost anybody.

His most recent achievement were the plans for the mission STS-73, with the route and the project of the spacial bus Columbia. And he got it with a blink of an eye, without taking a job inside the complex. All he had to do was asking for going to the toilet (yes, once more, the toilet) and in the path found out the plans. Americans were getting more sloppy. They couldn’t imagine that in few months, their meticulous plans would be crossing the Atlantic to reach a special PO Box at the suburb of Moscow.

The files destiny was not the Russian headquarters, that’s for sure. Such a high level informations demand extreme care. The letters contained informations that could easily mistaken by French recipes made with the freshest ingredients. Or curious papers about the efficiency on irrigate the soil with Merlot to get better results. The disguise was perfect.

His last letter turned to be his master piece. He knew to be getting better over time, in the way it just happens with the finest wines. Inside the letter, every single detail about the mission STS-73 was translated into a treaty about how milk’s flavour gets better if the cows listened to Ravel on daily bases.

Few people in the whole world would be able to crack the real information, now inside the PO Box in the suburb of Moscow, in a house that seemed to be abandoned.

A closer look would reveal that the house not only seemed to be abandoned, but in fact, was abandoned for some years. The place belonged to a former intel captan which now, couldn’t care less about the spacial bus the would be launch within the next months in the United States, in November, 1995.

It was shame that the Soviet Union was already over when the career of one of its most valuable and bright spies reached its peak. But it happens. Not every genius is able to be ahead of its time. Some, not even can be synced with his own time.