After the escape Sean and George Blake hid out quite close to Wormwood Scrubs, until it was possible to smuggle Blake out of Britain and into East Germany, with Sean following soon afterwards via the notorious Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. Sean was quickly flown from East Berlin to Moscow by his K.G.B. hosts and Moscow was to remain his base for the remainder of his stay in Russia. However Sean did tour Russia on a few occasions, with Blake, on his own and with Larisa, a beautiful young student with whom he apparently had an affair. He was accompanied by K.G.B. minders on every occasion except the last two, both of which he spent with Larisa; which raises the possibility of her being a K.G.B. agent (otherwise why would they have been allowed to go off on their own unescorted by any security personnel?). Sean became disillusioned with George Blake after he moved into Blake's Moscow flat. The London Blake and the Moscow Blake appeared to be two different people.
It is clear that Blake despised Sean Bourke and merely used him as a pawn in the furtherance of his own plans, to be discarded once his objectives had been achieved, but what he hadn't planned on was Sean's popularity with their Russian hosts. Blake saw Sean as "an Irish Peasant", merely a convenient lever with which to pry open the prison bars of Wormwood Scrubs. He tried to convey the impression of Sean as a stupid bumbler to the K.G.B.. He appears not to have convinced them, but the portrait of Sean that he painted did influence them somewhat in their dealings with the Irishman, an attitude which Sean subsequently used to his advantage.
After a while Sean's relations with Blake deteriorated drastically, and to such an extent that once he realized that Blake was spying on him and reporting everything he said or did back to the K.G.B., he decided to reciprocate in kind. It was as a result of this reciprocal surveillance that Sean overheard Blake suggest to a high-ranking K.G.B. officer that Sean should be disposed of. Blake had mooted the idea as one of two alternatives, but left the K.G.B. officer in no doubt as to which of the alternatives he personally preferred. Horrified by this episode Sean went to a British Embassy and tried to give himself up. He was turned away. Convinced that he was scheduled for death, Sean hid out for in a forest on the outskirts of Moscow for two days before returning to the flat he shared with Blake. Yet he managed to turn a potentially disastrous episode to his advantage by saying that he had acted thus as a result of his desperation to return to Ireland and "take his chances". It worked and the K.G.B. agreed to make arrangements for him to leave Russia.
Some time later in his Moscow hotel room, bored, drunk and lonely, Sean rang his brother Kevin in Scotland. He told Kevin of his intention to return to Ireland and invited him to Moscow to discuss matters. Once again he had upset the K.G.B. and once again their subsequent behaviour was at odds with the evil-bogeyman image which the Western media espoused during the Cold War and continues to this day. That is not to say that Sean was pro-K.G.B., he could see the organization for what it was. He disliked it's raison -d'etre, policies and their effects, yet he liked and seemed to be liked in return by the individual members of it, with whom he came into contact. It must be said, however, that the Soviet way of life and Sean's attitude to life were like oil and water. Society in Soviet Russia society was tightly ordered and closely monitored and Sean was a life-long 'professional rule-breaker'. By all accounts however, he appeared to have endeared himself to his Russian hosts. They certainly put up with a lot from him. In a country where the ability to hold one's liquor is admired, Sean's phenomenal capacity was possibly of help to him. On a personal level then, he certainly got on very well with those Russians that he met.
It is an indication of their regard for Sean that, when he had his brother try to smuggle his manuscript out of Russia when Kevin was leaving, the K.G.B., informed in advance of this attempt, merely confiscated the manuscript (which held some highly critical views of the Soviet Union), searched Kevin, let him go, admonished Sean mildly, and then 'volunteered to ring Kevin in Scotland and let Sean talk to him to to re-assure him as to Sean's well-being subsequent to the event. The two Bourkes used this telephone conversation as an opportunity to put further pressure on the K.G.B., who they were sure would be listening in to the conversation, to expedite Sean's exit from Russia .
It is probable and indeed more realistic that this lack of reaction to Sean's less than exemplary conduct was merely good Public Relations policy on the K.G.B.'s behalf. Yet, they could have easily made life much more difficult for Sean without unduly affecting any good or bad press they might have got. It might be argued that concern over what Sean might say once he reached the West was what motivated them, but they could have solved that problem by keeping him in Russia, or alternatively, discrediting , or arranging a fatal accident for him prior to or upon his arrival in the West. No, in retrospect, the most likely reason was that Sean did not, in the eyes of the K.G.B., constitute any threat to Russian interests.
So, on the 21st of October, 1968, Sean left Russian soil forever. He arrived in Shannon Airport the following day, exactly two years after he 'sprang' George Blake from Wormwood Scrubs. Nine days later he was arrested by the Irish police and held in custody pending extradition to Britain. However Kevin and Seans' solicitors were well prepared. A writ was immediately issued to prevent Sean's extradition until the extradition order could be appealed. It was appealed and in January of the following year the Irish High Court held that the Extradition Act did not apply in Sean's case due to the political nature of the crime, and he was accordingly released. In July, the State appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Ireland. The State's appeal was denied. Sean had won.
Johnny closed the book, put it into a plastic bag and returned it to the library. The following day he went on holidays with his friends -camping outside the village of Ardmore in County Waterford. Johnny's friends were surprised at how quiet and withdrawn he was for the first couple of weeks, but as the holiday wore on he returned to his normal self. As time passed he continued to hear snippets of news regarding Sean, but did not meet him again, himself. The news was never encouraging. Sean was still drinking heavily and by all accounts increasingly less well off financially.
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