Whilst they were speaking of our two RAF bases, they made no mention of a current mission operating out of Akrotiri, code name Shader, an RAF mission mounting strikes on Daesh, ISIS, in Iraq and Syria, but, as the conversation developed, reference was twice made to a figure known as the Count. Both mentions of the name were during a discussion on the evolving situation in South Africa, where it was decided to leave matters to ‘the Count’.
Having heard Judith’s account of Winston Bottomly, we were both aware of the Count and Bottomly being the same person. The CIA needed to be approached for an expanded explanation from Alexi Vasilyev, on the reason our signal reading posts on active RAF stations were of interest.
Of course, both of us wanted to know more of why two Russians were discussi
