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Two days later, at work, Lev told me to look in my desk drawer. There I found a bottle of Grand Marnier liqueur -very nice too! A few minutes later, he brought up the subject of research at the Defence establishment again, and asked me if I would try and get some information about it. Then he said "If you can get the information, I will pay you." I looked surprised, I think - well, you would, wouldn't you? He elaborated—he would reimburse me for any expense I might incur in getting the information, and would give me some extra, to help with my forthcoming moving expenses. I was rather worried now, but I said I would see what I could do. He then asked me not to mention this request to anyone, and to pretend that I wanted the material for myself.
I spent the next two days pondering the best way to deal with this -I certainly didn't fancy writing to the D. of N.D. and lying to them, and the whole thing was beginning to sound very suspicious. I decided that the thing to do was to consult my boss. I waited until Lev had left the lab for the day, then went and told the boss what had happened. The boss was not very surprised -he had been worried by Lev's lack of interest in the experiment he was supposed to be doing, the one on which he had been so insistent. The boss told me to sit tight and he would contact Security.
That evening, I was visited at home by two RCMP officers and I gave them the story, In as much detail as I could. They were very interested, and asked me to play along with the Russian, for the time being, while they checked with DND. I was asked to try and find out how much money he was prepared to pay, to give some indication. as to whether he was working alone or under direction, or if he was being sincere but foolish, and any more details on the information he wanted.
The first part was easy -the following Monday, Lev gave me another bottle of Balsam and raised the subject again. He again mentioned money, "to pay for my moving expenses "to the UK. I told him that those expenses were going to be pretty high, then he said "Well, I will give you a hundred dollars." (He obviously had little knowledge of the cost of moving to the UK.) I tried to pin him down on exactly what information he wanted, but all he would say was that he was "interested in all." This appeared to mean that he wanted to know about all the research at the Defence lab.
As a demonstration of his "openness" towards me, he told me that over the weekend he had been out of town, to somewhere near Toronto, with a girl, This was surprising, firstly because he had previously told me that he wouldn't mess around with women while he was in Canada, and secondly because he was not supposed to travel more than twenty-five miles from Ottawa, without permission from the Department of Manpower and Immigration
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