Guyon Espiner

In fact, we spoke with Ruben Azizian in Wellington as he finished up teaching New Zealand Defence Force personnel as they got ready for overseas deployments.

This is Skip Bennett describing his target from Soviet military intelligence, the GRU, the guy we're calling Vladimir.

In 1985, the British singer-songwriter Sting had a hit song called Russians.

You might remember it, John.

You might sing it, please don't.

Now technically, it should have probably been called Soviets, but you get the gist and I don't want to be too pedantic.

It revolved around the idea that Sting hopes the Russians love their children because then surely there won't be a nuclear war.

In overseas postings, the Soviet authorities appear to have used children as leverage to ensure loyalty, even people in trusted positions.

Yeah, I mean, very banal-sounding details can have an outsized importance here.

They could even be the difference between life and death.

So while he's keeping one eye on the prize, he has to be very diligent about making this deception sound like the truth.

At the back of Kit Bennett's mind is the constant concern that his past might come back to haunt him.

His involvement in the such case in Wellington in 1975 was publicised at the time, remember, against the wishes of the SIS.

Maybe that would be on a file somewhere.

Yeah, I mean, the GRU and the KGB are supposed to be on the same side, but they're also rivals and competitors, so probably not given to cross-checking every contact with someone from the West in case they give away some leverage or other.

So Kit Bennett keeps riding his luck, and eventually he's going to be able to fall back on something he does know, something that is going to really interest Soviet military intelligence.

That's right.

Instantaneously, really, isn't it?

Yeah, that's Ohakia Air Base, about, what, half an hour or so west of Palmerston North.

Ohakia.