December (3 page)

‘Now, our faction’s problem is that they are not strong enough to depose him outright and therefore need to repeat the sort of popular uprising that happened in 1991 when Yeltsin stood on that tank and was able to face down the KGB coup against Gorbachev. But in order to do that they need two things: one is control of the TV network to broadcast the revolt—and we are sure they can deliver that. The second is a popular figurehead to lead the rebellion. The guy running the faction is an oligarch who is resented by most people because of his money, so he couldn’t do it and will therefore stay very much in the background.

‘However, they do have the perfect candidate for the job: Roman Raskolnikov.’ The general looked at Alex for a sign of recognition. ‘Former national football captain, got involved in politics when he left sport and set up an opposition party, fell
out with the government after protesting about human rights abuses. Has impeccable populist credentials: is widely trusted as an honourable man and has a lot of popular sympathy. The only problem is,’ Harrington shrugged ruefully, ‘the government got so pissed off with him that they sent him to prison in Siberia for fifteen years on trumped-up tax evasion charges.

‘So, this is where we come in.’ He paused, looking intently at Alex. ‘We are going to indulge in what Sir Francis Walsingham used to refer to as “lighting fires in other men’s houses”. It’s going to be your job to attack the prison camp, free Raskolnikov and then take him to Moscow to launch a coup against the government.’

Alex didn’t blink but looked straight back at Harrington as he tried to take in the enormity of this task.

Harrington took his silence as assent.

‘If you’re wondering why we picked you, it’s because you’re ex-army and therefore trusted and have a proven track record of being able to pull off this sort of small-scale raid.’ He gave a rare smile. ‘You have the network of contacts that you can call on at short notice to do this, apart from which you apparently speak good Russian. However, you have been out of the Forces for a few years now and are well known on the international circuit as a mercenary, so I’m afraid that, if this does all go tits up, you will be completely deniable. As you can guess by the secretive nature of this meeting, the government is going to have no more contact with the op after this briefing. It will be over to you.

‘Our contact can’t organise the raid himself because he’s a businessman, not a soldier. He approached us for help because he’s based in London a lot and has links here, and it’s more secure for you to organise it than anyone inside Russia—it would run the risk of leaks.

‘Now, there is one final point. The oligarch has actually been
talking to us about this for some time now but we ignored the idea as being too risky until this current energy crisis blew up. The reason this whole contact with you has been,’ he paused apologetically, ‘a bit rushed, is because our man now has intelligence from inside the regime that they may be making moves to kill Raskolnikov in a prison “accident” soon. If that happens then our last chance of bringing down this regime from inside will have gone and we could well be looking at a World War Three situation as Krymov goes increasingly crackers.’

Harrington looked at Alex grimly, but with the confidence that he would now have grasped the importance of the mission and do as he was ordered.

Alex unfolded his arms, leaned forward in his chair, looked straight at Harrington and said calmly, ‘That is the maddest plan I have ever heard in my entire life. No way.’ He shook his head and sat back.

He was not in a forgiving mood after his abrupt pick-up and the railroading at the start of the briefing. Quite apart from that, he was a sharp-minded, independent field commander, used to analysing the feasibility of operations and giving direct opinions on them.

He held out a hand in exasperation. ‘It’s as mad as…’ he fished in his memory for a comparably risky venture, ‘…Suez!’

The word visibly stung Harrington. He was well aware of the risky nature of the operation and hated being reminded of the similarly secretive and half-baked foreign policy disaster that had brought about the end of the British Empire.

Alex pushed his chair back, stood up and leaned over the table, extending a hand again towards Harrington. ‘This
will
start World War Three! I mean, we don’t
know
that Krymov
will
start it himself but we sure know it will happen if we do this.’

Harrington wasn’t used to having to persuade people to do things.

He jabbed a finger back at Alex, his face red. ‘Look, Devereux!’ he shouted. ‘If you don’t do what we say, you’re fucked! We’ve got enough charges on you for launching illegal wars in your African adventures that you will never work again as a mercenary and will spend a long time at Her Majesty’s pleasure if we really decide to kick you in the balls. And I don’t give a
fuck
if you think you deserve a medal for saving the world! Do I make myself clear!’

The two were eyeball to eyeball over the table.

Alex was enraged but his mind was working fast. He knew that what Harrington said was true: if the government really wanted to get him they could; and from what he knew of Harrington he would enjoy grinding Alex into the dust. At the same time he could see that the country was in trouble and that this would be the opportunity to serve that he felt he had been denied.

Without breaking eye contact with Harrington, he said in an even tone: ‘OK…I’ll do it. With conditions.’

He paused. Harrington blinked.

‘I want ten million quid, plus the same amount for my men.’ He paused again. ‘And, since I am putting my arse on the line for the good of the country, I
do
want a medal, actually. If I pull this one off, I want a VC. Gift of a grateful nation.’ He raised an eyebrow.

Harrington huffed indignantly. ‘You can’t dictate that sort of—’

Alex interrupted calmly, ‘Look, Harrington, you make the rules, so bend them. If you don’t, you’re fucked. Do I make myself clear?’

THURSDAY 4 DECEMBER

Alex stumbled on an icy patch in the dark and cursed. He steadied himself and moved on more carefully. Getting around London now was like going for a walk in the countryside at night: there were no streetlights at all and he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face.

The road was silent and knee-deep in snow; the stuff was falling slowly but heavily, his footsteps were muffled and he felt a soft resistance to each stride. A thick layer of snow had accreted on every horizontal surface, no matter how small: the tops of car wing mirrors parked along the street; between the uprights of the black metal railings screening the houses from the road.

He had met Harrington two days before and was now making his way from his house up the New King’s Road to The Boltons in South Kensington—the exclusive street where he had been instructed to meet the oligarch. He hadn’t even been given the man’s name yet. Apparently he had just flown in from Moscow and was hosting a party, although Alex wasn’t sure how the hell he was going to do that in the present circumstances: there was no power, and food stocks were beginning to run low.

Harrington had read out the invitation with a pained expression: ‘It’s to celebrate the Fixed Great Feast of the Russian Orthodox Church: Entry into the Temple of our Most Holy Lady Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary.’

He had then barked in irritation: ‘Look, just turn up and introduce yourself as Alexander Grekov. Our contact will take it from there. I will sort the transfer of the money and I’ll look into that other thing…’ He waved his hand in disgust at Alex’s demand for a VC. ‘Just pull this off and frankly you can ask for the bloody world. As far as you’re concerned, though, this is your last contact with HMG. From now on we don’t know who you are and we don’t care if you get into any shit when you’re on the op. You are
totally
deniable. You’re on your own, Devereux!’ he had added with relish.

Alex stopped to check his location with his torch. He shone the beam along a wall looking for a street name; familiar places suddenly became alien when they were plunged into pitch-darkness. The few passers-by he did meet seemed threatening and they huddled away from each other. He found a name and then brushed the snowflakes off the torch, stuck it back in his overcoat pocket, and walked on.

He was always struck by the huge scale of the houses in The Boltons neighbourhood: five floors plus basement. ‘House’ was an understatement; they were really white stucco palaces. Some of them had candlelight shining dimly from their windows but most were just black looming hulks.

Despite the ill-tempered meeting with Harrington, Alex was actually feeling a sense of excitement. He was committed to the operation now. The chance to serve his country again was irresistible once his anger against Harrington had died down and he was also galvanised by the huge sum of money that he stood to earn. This could be the restoration of the
Devereux family’s fortunes that he had always dreamed of. Plans of how he could repair Akerly had already begun to circle in his mind.

He wasn’t sure what to expect at the party. A Fixed Great Feast of the Russian Orthodox Church didn’t sound like a bundle of laughs.

He was nearing the address now and thought he could hear a faint sound against the backdrop of the silent city. He walked cautiously on and detected a muffled beat coming through the night; there was also a faint glow from round the corner up ahead.

As he rounded it he saw a huge house lit up with strings of white fairy lights twisted around the bare branches of a pair of old beech trees, spreading a canopy of twirling lights over the driveway. A large mobile generator unit hummed under one of them. The place was lit up like a cruise liner gliding through a dark sea. Arc lights on the walls poured out a wasteful excess of light—almost obscene in the midst of all the darkness.

On the road outside stretched a line of cars with chauffeurs: huge, long-bonneted Rolls-Royces, Range Rovers and pumped-up 4x4s. A line of chattering guests filed up to the double gates of the drive; they looked like Eurotrash: twentysomethings in expensively ripped jeans and blazers, and middle-aged businessmen in casual suits with trophy wives all wrapped up in expensive furs.

Alex walked up and stood awkwardly in line. He had been preparing to talk small-scale military operations rather than small talk. The house gates were open but blocked by two huge security men in black bomber jackets and a very attractive tall, slim girl from somewhere he couldn’t place in central Asia—Mongolia? She wore high-heeled black boots and a long sable coat with a cowl-like hood. Standing in front of
the two doormen, she was welcoming guests and checking them off on a clipboard.

She flashed a dazzling, friendly smile as Alex stepped forward, and said cheerfully: ‘
Dobry vecher
!’

Alex quickly replied: ‘
Dobry deetche
.’

‘
Kak vasha familia
?’ she continued, holding the pen poised over her clipboard.

‘
Maya familia Grekov
.’

‘Ah, Alexander!’ She seemed to be expecting him and smiled as if she had found a long-lost friend, then ticked his name off.

She continued in Russian:‘Welcome to Sergey Shaposhnikov’s house. My name is Bayarmaa.’ She held out a delicate gloved hand. ‘Please, follow me.’ She handed the clipboard to one of the bouncers and led the way up the drive with a swirl of her long coat.

Shaposhnikov.

So that was who it was, thought Alex as he followed her. Sergey Shaposhnikov—he knew the name but couldn’t think in what context he had come across it.

He followed Bayarmaa up the large front steps flanked by white columns and in through the open double doors. Heaters blew a curtain of warmth over them. There seemed to be no shortage of power here and the excess of heat felt luxurious after so many days of shivering.

The heat was just as well, thought Alex, as he was confronted by the sight of a scantily clad pole-dancer writhing on a platform as they walked into the hall ahead of the huge room that took up most of the raised ground floor of the house.

The Entry of the Ever-Virgin Mary, he thought wryly to himself as they walked past. Clearly Shaposhnikov didn’t take his orthodoxy
that
seriously.

They handed their coats to a smartly dressed woman by the door and then a waitress with a tray of vodka shot glasses walked up to them. Bayarmaa handed Alex one with a smile that brooked no refusal. He nodded his thanks, threw the drink back and followed her through, savouring the burst of warmth in his stomach.

Beyond the pole-dancer, the high-ceilinged room was noisy and packed with a couple of hundred guests. A bar stretched all the way down one side with ten uniformed barmen running around frantically trying to supply the crowd of people.

A band at the far end of the room were enthusiastically belting out a Russian cover of a Stones song. After a few bars Alex worked it out as ‘Brown Sugar’.

They looked an odd group, dressed in nylon imitation Russian peasant garb and fronted by a plump fifty-year-old woman with peroxide-blonde hair and heavy framed glasses in a long pink medieval robe and traditional Russian headdress. Behind her stood a tall, lugubrious-looking, bearded man in a green smock, tasselled cord belt, baggy Cossack pants and boots. He was playing bass on an enormous balalaika. The guests were too busy drinking and talking to listen to the band, though. No one was dancing yet.

Alex followed Bayarmaa’s silky black hair as they pushed their way through the crowd to the bar.

A loud squawk of alarm came from the lead singer on the stage and the music crashed to a halt mid-song. Looking out over the press of heads Alex could see that a drunken businessman had clambered on stage and grabbed the microphone from her. Everyone turned to the stage and a chorus of angry shouts and boos broke out. The man with the microphone began shouting back at them in Russian: ‘Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up!’

He was middle-aged, a bit above average height and well built, with a mop of straw-blond hair that shone in the stage lights and hung down over his eyes. He was wearing a crumpled suit and tie and had a large diamond stud that glittered in one ear. He stood at the front of the stage swaying and pointing at the crowd.

‘You want to party, eh? I’ll show you how to party! I am the Party Commissar!’ He said this in English to get the double meaning and burst into a high-pitched giggle at his own joke. ‘Yes, you’re all miserable Russian fuckers! Your heads are full of dark forests with wolves running around in them and the Party Commissar has detected these anti-revolutionary sentiments, which have led to erroneous political judgements.
You’re not dancing
!’

The crowd seemed to know that the man was just a good-natured buffoon and began laughing at his parody of Soviet political rhetoric.

‘So as a good agent of the workers’ state I will take all steps necessary to ensure the re-education of the proletariat. Unless you become party-Stakhanovites, I will have you all shot! I want over-fulfilment of your party quotas!’

The crowd had caught on and cheered loudly now.

Bayarmaa nudged Alex and said, her eyes sparkling with adoration, ‘That’s Sergey.’

Alex frowned. He was not at all what Alex had expected.

Sergey lurched round to look at the lead singer, who had recovered her composure.

‘Lyuda, come on, enough of this Western shit. Let’s have some
proper
dancing!’

The band hastily rearranged themselves and the lead balalaika player stepped forward.

Sergey spotted some friends in the audience. ‘Grigory! Katya! Vera! Come on!’ He jumped down into the crowd,
who made a ring, whilst the four formed themselves into a quadrille and, when the music started, began a fast Russian dance. Sergey grinned and clapped along as the men waited for the women to complete their delicate shimmying moves—hands on hips and heads thrown back with narrowed eyes and pouting mouths.

However, when it came to Sergey’s turn for a solo, his expression became deadly serious as he threw himself into the jumps and kicks—now squatting down, now springing up and whirling round.

The crowd roared in appreciation at his bravado and even more when his partner, Grigory, fell over. The dance ended with a storm of applause and much back-slapping.

Sergey blundered away through the crowd, saw Bayarmaa next to the bar and headed towards them.

‘Hey, my little Artic fox!’

He embraced her with a huge bear hug, swinging her off her feet and around. She squealed with delight before kissing him on the lips when he dumped her back down again.

She collected herself and remembered Alex, standing next to her.

‘Sergey, this is Mr Grekov.’ She rested a light hand on Alex’s arm and drew him towards Sergey.

‘Eh? Grekov?’

Sergey looked confused and leered at him from under his shock of hair, now slicked flat over his ears with sweat. He had a broad-boned face with fleshy lips and pale skin. Laughter lines creased the corners of his eyes, which had a slight Slavic slant to them. The chaotic hair, rumpled suit and diamond earring gave him a piratical air.

‘Yes, the geologist you said you wanted to talk to,’ she prompted him.

‘Ahh!’ he slurred in recognition and stuck his hand out towards Alex. It was wet with sweat.

A man barged through the crowd and threw an arm around Sergey. He looked like an old-style Mafia don: in his fifties, black-suited and heavily built with steel-grey hair brushed straight back.

‘Hey, you crazy fuck—“Party Commissar!”’ he laughed at the joke again. Ignoring Alex, Sergey turned to the man, became animated again and roared along with him in an eager-to-please way.

‘Vladimir Ilarionovich,’ he said, using his patronymic as a sign of respect, and then saw that he had an empty glass, ‘you’ve run out of magic party liquid! I’ll send you to the camps for that!’

The man wheezed with laughter: ‘Yes! Ten years with no rights of correspondence!’ he said, repeating the euphemistic death sentence handed out in the 1930s purges.

Sergey giggled manically and mimed shooting someone in the head: ‘That’s right! Shoot the bastards!’

He turned to the bar. ‘Hey, Ivan!’ he shouted at the nearest barman. ‘Three Litvinenkos!’ He put a hot sweaty arm around both Alex and Vladimir and bent them over the bar.

‘This is my favourite cocktail, in memory of that bastard.’

Vladimir nodded grimly. ‘Yes—we fucked him up good and proper.’

Ivan the barman grinned as he lined up three highball glasses and poured lavish quantities of the ingredients, snapping off the stream of liquor with a flick of his wrists.

Sergey listed them as they went in: ‘Vodka, crème de menthe, apple schnapps, melon liquor, a squirt of lemonade and then the final ingredient—not Polonium-210.’ He winked at Vladimir as Ivan pulled a packet of Alka-Seltzer out of
his barman’s apron and clunked two into each glass so that the bright green contents fizzed radioactively.

Sergey picked up his glass and clinked with the other two. ‘See you under the table!’

Vladimir laughed and shook his head in admiration. ‘Sergey Stepanovich…’

Sergey smiled affectionately back and then threw his arm round Alex and said to Vladimir, ‘Right, I’ve got to talk to this boring geologist. You can fuck off and find yourself something to do.’ He pointed at the pole-dancer.

Vladimir looked at Alex and grunted, ‘Geology, huh!’ and then looked at the dancer and grinned at Sergey. ‘I prefer biology…’ he grinned, and lurched off through the crowd towards her twisting figure.

Sergey grabbed Bayarmaa around the waist and steered her out of the room. ‘Come on, let’s go to my office,’ he said over his shoulder to Alex, who followed, clutching his foaming, green drink.

By now he was seriously disturbed by what he had seen of Sergey. This is the man in charge of organising the most dangerous political coup ever? he thought as they threaded through the guests in the huge ground-floor room and made their way up the sweeping main staircase.

Alex had finally remembered where he had heard Sergey’s name before—on the gossip page of
The Times
. There had been a paparazzi photo of him leaving a club late at night with some starlet. He couldn’t remember what the salacious element of the story was but it didn’t surprise him in the least after what he had just seen. The operation was risky enough without having a lunatic in charge of it.