Chapter 32
Acknowledgements
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By Charles Cumming
‘Would you prefer to talk or to write everything down?’
‘Talk,’ she said.
Somerville crossed the room and activated the voice recorder. The American had brought it from the Embassy. There was a small microphone attached to a stand, a glass of tap water and a plate of biscuits on the table.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
‘Ready.’
Somerville leaned over the microphone. His voice was clear, his language concise.
‘Statement by LASZLO. Chapel Street, SW1. August nineteenth. Officer presiding: L4. Begins now.’ He checked his watch. ‘Seventeen hundred hours.’
Lara Bartok adjusted the collar of her shirt. She caught Somerville’s eye. He nodded at her, indicating that she should start. She brought the microphone slightly closer to her and took a sip of water. The American realised that he was standing in her eyeline. He moved to a chair on the far side of the room. Bartok did not continue until he was still and completely silent.
‘In the beginning, there were seven,’ she said.
SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE EYES ONLY / STRAP 1
STATEMENT BY LARA BARTOK (‘LASZLO’)
CASE OFFICERS: J.W.S./S.T.H. – CHAPEL STREET
REF: RESURRECTION/SIMAKOV/CARRADINE
FILE: RE2768X
PART 1 of 5
‘In the beginning there were seven. Ivan [Simakov], of course, who is still rightly regarded as the intellectual and moral architect of Resurrection;
Also present that day were Thomas Frattura, former assistant to Republican Senator Catherine McKendrick, who had been a prominent figure in Disrupt J20; and me, Lara Bartok, originally from Gyula, in eastern Hungary, about whom you know almost everything.
These seven individuals met only once, in a suite at the Redbury Hotel on East 29th Street in Manhattan. Of course, no cellphones, laptops or Wi-Fi enabled devices of any kind were permitted to be brought to the hotel. Each of the guests who entered the suite was searched by Ivan and myself and asked to remove watches and other items of jewellery, all of which we then took – along with personal belongings including bags and shoes – to a room on a separate floor of the hotel for the duration of the meeting. Ivan, who was meeting
Frattura asked him to explain in more detail what he meant by this. I remember that Ivan paused. He always had a good sense of theatre. He crossed the suite and opened the curtains. It was a wet morning, there had been heavy rain all night. Through the glass it looked as though the thick fog of the New York skyline was going to seep into the room. What he said next was the best of him. In fact his response to Frattura would form the basis of all the early statements released on behalf of Resurrection outlining our movement’s basic goals and rationale.
‘Those
