Two Russians did their work well before Canadian spy-catchers snared them. Each built a new identity, found a good job - and drew unsuspecting Canadians into passionate love affairs.
The two, who face imminent deportation, have been identified by intelligence officials as Dmitry Olshevsky, 32, and Yelena Olshevskaya, 33, a couple who lived in Canada for at least six years using names taken from the tombstones of dead babies.The couple was arrested after lengthy surveillance by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The counterspy agency has not yet presented any evidence that they were actively conducting espionage in Canada and probably won't have to now that the pair has agreed to be deported.
Experts say the couple either was in pursuit of high-technology information or had been assigned to live quietly in Canada for several years establishing fool-proof false identities before moving elsewhere.
But to their neighbors, co-workers and lovers they were Ian and Laurie Lambert, affable, easygoing Canadians. Authorities believe the couple is married, although both had lovers in Canada.
Anita Keyes, 37, admits she fell deeply in love with the man she knew as Ian Lambert.
They met while working together at a photography firm in the Toronto suburb of Markham. Lambert liked to take pictures himself, and Keyes said she became "his favorite subject."
The relationship was "beyond what most people have in their life," Keyes told the Toronto Star. "We cherished every minute together."
"This isn't a story about spies, this is a love story," she said. "Ian is not some cardboard spy, some evil person. He's wonderful, kind, he's romantic and supportive."
Peter Miller, a Toronto physician, has had a four-month affair with the woman he thought was insurance-company worker Laurie Lambert. They met at a dinner honoring Scotch single-malt whiskey.
At a court hearing Tuesday, Olshevskaya - dressed in a white blouse and skirt - waved quickly at Miller before she was handcuffed and led away. She and Olshevsky agreed at the hearing not to contest the deportation order.
Asked outside court what he told her when they spoke across a courtroom railing, Miller replied: "It's been nice, but so long."
"I think she's a tremendous person who's been bottled up as a spy through many years," Miller said.
Miller told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that his girlfriend admitted to him she was a spy but told him little else. He said Canadian agents told him after her arrest that she was trying to form a network of agents.
Publicly, there has been no protest from the Russian government over the arrests. Canada's foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, said such incidents "are not helpful to Canada-Russia relations."
Alistair Hensler, a former senior official with the CSIS, said the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service and its Soviet predecessor, the KGB, have been generating false Canadian identities since the 1950s.
The Russian agents are said to spend five to 10 years mastering Canada's language and culture before coming here and assuming false identities.
Hensler suggested the Lamberts were given away by a defector, as were other spies.
"To get the full history, I guess you'd have to wait 10 or 15 years and go interview them in Russia," said John Thompson, an analyst at the MacKenzie Institute, a privately funded think tank.