Red Omega (1982)

John Kruse's thriller, first published by The Bodley Head in 1982, is set in 1952 and 1953, when the KGB learns that one of the highest-ranking members of the Soviet government is an American mole, code-named Omega, and Stalin begins a purge to find him. To save him, David Kelland of the CIA's clandestine service plans to have Stalin assassinated, and recruits Joaquin Cabeza, El Duro, a peasant general of the Spanish Civil War who fled to Russia and was imprisoned and tortured there. (Open Library)

Watches

Longines watch: Gail Lessing, posing as an Embassy driver, collects Kelland at London Airport on a wet January day and watches him in the car as he rereads a report from the Ankara station, telling her calmly that a Mercedes has followed him since Ankara. Everything about him is gold, from the Shaeffer pen he marks the report with to his Longines wristwatch and the signet ring on his little finger, above manicured hands, worsted trousers and a Scotch tweed topcoat with the tabs removed. The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: She could feel the vibes of concern coming from him as he re-read it, item by item, marking certain passages with a gold Shaeffer. Everything gold, Longines wrist-watch, signet ring on little finger. (John Kruse, Red Omega, scan cataloged as The Bodley Head, 1982, p. 36; she meets him at Customs on p. 35; Internet Archive scan OCR)