Your pay is whatever job you have as a cover pays you. If you were getting additional pay to that, then it would be a red flag when the various agencies investigate you.
> Elena also provided a veneer of plausibility for the Šapošnikovs’ lavish lifestyle. Despite Šapošnikov’s modest income from Imex (around $650 per month), the family bought real estate in Czechia and Greece at a value far in excess of what their collective income could account for. As Czech investigators note, “in some cases their official income could not cover even their phone bill for the month.” Furthermore, Elena owned a company registered in the Marshall Islands and controlled two bank accounts in Switzerland. Those offshore accounts, plus unexplained cash infusions to their Czech banks and a series of in-cash payments, appeared to have been the real source of income.
...
> In 2009 the Šapošnikovs purchased a sprawling villa on the picturesque Aegean peninsula of Halkidiki, Greece. The price, as recorded in the notarial deed of purchase obtained by The Insider, was 275,292 euros, or $300,000 at the time. Elena would later tell investigators that she had funded the investment “with money from my parents” – a tall order for the septuagenarian couple living in Kyiv on pensions of under $300 per month.
Edit: Nothing you wrote contradicts anything I said. Your quote proves my statement. They had other sources of income than their cover provided, and the investigators used that to zero in them. <anotherFacepalm>
How does health insurance work for spy stuff? If the GRU agent gets exposed to novachuck, do they get to see a Russian specialist or do they just have access to the providers in their cover plan?
> If your pay is less than your cover, do you have to give it back?
How can your pay be less than your cover? Your cover job is paying you. Your host agency is not.
> How does health insurance work for spy stuff?
At this point, I'm curious if this is an attempt at humor?
Russia, as most of Europe, has free public health care. You don't have to pay for it.
Also, I think you have some confusion.
1) you are an officer in your army/services. You get your salary on your Russian bank account
2) you have a cover job that pays you. You use that money for your cover life.
you also have a bank account in your home country, and that gets a salary, too.
your insurance is through your cover job, or the country's healthcare system (if socialized). which also means you have crappy insurance salesman coverage :/ twenty years later when you return to the home country to retire you can sup on your pension and any retirement healthcare coverage, but until then it's on you.