Adventures of a British Master Spy: The Memoirs of Sidney Reilly (Dialogue Espionage Classics)
Language: English
Pages: 297
ISBN: B00P0ZOO5C
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A real-life James Bond, alleged to have spied for at least four nations and executed on the direct orders of Stalin himself, Sidney Reilly left a trail of false identities that made him precisely the type of person the secret intelligence service needed as an agent. Hero, conman, master spy, womaniser - who really was the 'Ace of Spies'? In September 1925, Sidney Reilly journeyed across the Russian frontier on a mission to overthrow the existing Bolshevik regime and restore the Czar. Yet, soon after, he vanished without a trace... Just like the life he led, the circumstances surrounding his death remain shrouded in mystery and speculation. This thrilling autobiography, including entries from Reilly's own secret notes, reveals the intriguing, and often perilous, adventures and exploits of the man widely credited as being the original twentieth-century super-spy - and an inspiration for Ian Fleming's 007 thrillers. The latter half of this dual narrative is provided by Reilly's wife, Pepita, who is on her own mission: to discover the truth behind her husband's disappearance. What did happen to the master of espionage? The Dialogue Espionage Classics series began in 2010 with the purpose of bringing back classic out-of-print spy stories that should never be forgotten. From the Great War to the Cold War, from the French Resistance to the Cambridge Five, from Special Operations to Bletchley Park, this fascinating spy history series includes some of the best military, espionage and adventure stories ever told.
Guards would be alert. What proportion of the fugitives would get safely over, I wondered, and what harvest of carnage would the Red soldiers reap before this fatal week was over. In imagination I saw tenderly nurtured women and brave men haled back to the grim dungeons of No. 2 Gorohovaya, when safety was already within their sight, I saw torturings and shootings and carnage, I heard the shrieks of the tormented and the groans of the dying, and the fingers of the Bolshevist’s Chinese hirelings
contractors, and represented in the Russian capital the great Hamburg firm of Bluhm and Voss. At the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War, Messrs Bluhm and Voss acted as agents for the Russian government in the repatriation of Russian prisoners in Japan, and in this connection the experience and personal influence of Sidney Reilly made his services invaluable and enhanced his reputation in Russian official circles. More than this, he was able to use the influence he had gained with the Russian
the would-be Russian dictator. Savinkoff himself represented the interview as a clash of strong wills. Mussolini was jealous of him as of a greater spirit. He gave us a very circumstantial account of their conversations together, in which it appeared that he had dictated to the dictator. I can see him now posing and attitudinising in front of the fireplace and delivering his words with a dramatic emphasis. The long and short of it was that he could get no financial help from Mussolini. The utmost
their heads at the time when all prisoners in the state prisons were released, the greater was their grievance against society and the greater was their welcome to the ranks of Bolshevism. A man who could read and write was eyed askance; the illiterates were obviously of the oppressed, and now their time had come. The premium put on ignorance among the high Bolshevik officials was of the greatest value to the British secret service. Many of my agents operated with passports which were something
his reason, declared to him that Marie was still alive. He longed for company and for comfort. He was not the sort of man who can face life alone. Never have I seen a face so desperate. He was completely broken down. The sight of his sorrow-stricken countenance first, I think, drew me out of my morbid grieving for my husband, over whose doubtful fate I had been brooding all these months. I realised that there were others as wretched as myself and for a similar cause. George Nicholaivitch had