John Hopkins

Sidney Riley quickly learns what has happened, as word spreads through party offices and factory floors alike that the revolution has been targeted.

Within hours, the Bolshevik leadership frames the shooting as part of a wider assault on the regime.

The Cheka respond with urgency, drawing on lists already compiled from suspicions long entertained and grievances carefully noted.

In truth, Fanny Kaplan acted alone.

She had no connection to the British or French missions in Moscow.

But in the charged atmosphere that follows, the Cheka move against foreign nationals already under scrutiny for counter-revolutionary intrigue.

Among those detained is Robert Bruce Lockhart,

he is taken to the notoriously brutal Cheka headquarters at the Lubyanka for interrogation, before being held under guard in the Kremlin itself.

The so-called Lockhart plot, with Riley at its heart, collapses before it can be launched.

But once again, all is not as it seems.

Whether Riley is one of the architects of a reckless coup or the unwitting participant in a trap carefully laid by the Cheka itself remains a matter of debate.

What is certain is that, with the net tightening, Riley's time in Moscow has run out.

He slips beyond Russia's grasp by the skin of his teeth, but the world he leaves behind is changing fast.

In the aftermath of the failed coup and the deepening Russian civil war, espionage begins to evolve.

The improvisational, personality-driven spycraft of the pre-war years gives way to something colder and more structured.

Intelligence services that once relied on colorful adventurers now prefer disciplined officers who follow instructions.

And though Sidney Riley has certainly never been one of those, for now he is too experienced and too knowledgeable to be discarded immediately.

Throughout the early 1920s, he drifts across Europe, inserting himself into émigré circles and anti-Bolshevik networks.

He cultivates wealthy backers and displaced Russian aristocrats who still believe the revolution can be undone.

But as the Bolsheviks consolidate power and the Red Army strengthens, Western governments grow cautious about further exploits in Russia.