“Chechnya, some years ago, but I was a very junior officer. You wouldn’t remember. My name is Igor Levin. This way, if you please. General Volkov is waiting.”
He led the way through gloomy corridors and back stairs, finally opening a door leading to a much larger and more ornate corridor. There were gilt mirrors, portraits from another age, fine carpeting.
“I must say, this is beautiful.”
“I imagine that Tsar Nicholas thought so, too,” Levin said.
They came to an ornate door, where a burly individual, again in an excellent suit, was seated in a high chair. A machine pistol was on a small table beside him. He didn’t stand and didn’t speak.
“We like to be prepared for any eventuality,” Levin said.
“Even in here?” Greta said.
“Especially in here.” He opened a door and ushered them in without announcement and stood at the back of the room, which was quite stunning, very French. Its paneled walls were beautifully painted with formal scenes of the seventeenth century, and there were portraits of the same period, a magnificent fireplace with a real fire, or so it appeared, an exquisite mirror above it. Chairs and a settee decorated the room, but the really striking thing was the huge desk in the center and the man who sat behind it. He had looked up as they entered and was nothing like Greta had expected. He was perhaps sixty, hair decidedly thinning, wearing wire spectacles of an old-fashioned type, a neat suit in navy blue, a dark tie. He could have been the manager of an insurance office, this man who, according to what Ashimov had told her, wielded such power. When he spoke, his voice was not much more than a whisper.
“My dear Ashimov, so you made it in one piece again?”
“My luck is good, Comrade.”
“I’m never too sure whether you should call me that any longer.”
“Old habits die hard.”
Volkov stood up, came round the desk and shook hands with Greta. “Your luck is also good, Major.”
“Yes, Comrade.
There was a power to him, she realized that now, and as he continued to hold her hand, it flowed through her. “More than luck, I think. I believe in God, you see, like my blessed mother before me. Everything is for a purpose.” He patted her hand. “But I am a poor host, and for a beautiful and brave young Russian woman who has gone through the ordeal you have, there is only one remedy. The finest vodka we have.” He said to Levin, “Igor, if you wouldn’t mind?”
“Of course not, Comrade General.”
“Igor,” Volkov told him gently, “I have told you never to use my title publicly.”
“I am suitably chastened, Comrade General.”
“Hopeless. Come, we sit by the fire and talk. Igor always seems to see the lighter side of life despite having served in Afghanistan with the KGB at nineteen, then the paratroopers in Chechnya. He was in the GRU when he fell into my hands, and now he’s one of my security guards. Took a bullet for me once.”
“There’s nothing like KGB training,” said Ashimov.
“Yes. Now let’s sit by the fire. I’ve things to say.”
Levin opened a cupboard and produced an ice bucket containing a bottle of vodka and frosted glasses.
“You will join us, Igor. Just one, though. You must remember your trigger finger.”
The vodka was sublime and burned its way down. “Excellent,” Volkov told them. “Damn Ferguson and damn the Prime Minister. Another, Igor, and then we’ll get down to business.”
They sat by the fire and Volkov began. “This is the situation. Since the end of the Iraq war, Belov International has continued to prosper. Since the vote for democracy in Iraq, the prospect is very real of the oil industry there returning to full flow, indeed to achieve a level of production beyond all expectation, and we are in the middle of it. We’re talking a company worth fifteen billion and rising.”
“That would be staggering,” Greta said.
“And nothing must be allowed to put such success at risk. In other words, Belov can’t die. Igor will take you to see Max Zubin tonight. We’ll ship him off to Station Gorky to settle him in, let the world know where he is and slip him back when necessary.”
“Which will totally confuse Ferguson and company in London,” Ashimov said, “Dillon having reported back on a successful mission.”
“And we mustn’t forget President Cazalet and that Blake Johnson man of his. They always exchange information with their British cousins,” Volkov pointed out.
Greta said, “But after Dillon’s report, they’ll know the Belov in Siberia is false.”
“Yes, but Ferguson can’t afford to disclose it – admit that his agents, acting on behalf of the Prime Minister, conducted a slaughter in the Republic of Ireland, a sovereign state. Where a highly important Russian citizen happened to be at the same time.”
“So it’s a standoff,” Ashimov said. “There’s nothing the Brits can do about it and we keep the world financial markets happy.”
“There’s more to it than that. This organization that Ferguson runs, the so-called Prime Minister’s Private Army. Such typical British hypocrisy. They’ve been committing murders for years and getting away with it. Dillon’s record speaks for itself. Well, the President thinks we should lance the boil, as it were.”
“Are you suggesting what I think you are?”
“Yes. Total elimination of Ferguson’s team once and for all. The General himself, his personal assistant, this Superintendent Bernstein, Dillon of course, and these Salter people, the London gangsters who’ve been helping him out during the last few years. While you’re at it, perhaps Cazalet’s man, too, Blake Johnson. Another thorough nuisance.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Ashimov said.
“It’s a tall order, I know, but already started in a way. That woman Bernstein you ran down in London, she’s in a medical facility Ferguson runs in Saint John’s Wood. It would be a good start to things if you could find some means of easing her on.”
“As you say, Comrade.” Ashimov wasn’t troubled in the slightest by the thought.
“Good,” Volkov said. “I leave it all in your capable hands. I’ve left you, Major Novikova, on the books of the London Embassy as a commercial attache. It will bring you diplomatic immunity, although I’m certain Ferguson won’t make a move against you. At the worst, they could only ask you to leave. Captain Levin will have a similar situation at the Embassy to act as backup. The appropriate documentation is in the file on my desk.” He turned to Ashimov. “I would think it prudent for you not to return to London, if only because Dillon would attempt retribution.”
“As you say, Comrade.”
“Igor will take you to see Max Zubin to make certain he knows what is expected of him. Spend the night, then return to Ireland tomorrow. Igor will go with you. I envy you your inevitable success. I don’t think there’s anything more.”
But there was, for at that very moment a secret door in the wall swung open and President Putin walked in.
They all leaped to their feet, for it was an astonishing moment. Putin wore a tracksuit, a towel around his neck.
“You must excuse me, Comrades. Affairs of state got in the way of my hour in the gym this morning, so I’ve been making up for it. Good to see you again, Major Ashimov. You must be feeling like a cat at the moment, a tomcat, naturally.”
“Very much so, Comrade President.”
Putin turned to Greta. “Major Novikova.” He offered his hand. “I hear good things about you, even if you are GRU.”
It was his little joke, a reference to the intense rivalry between the KGB, to which he had once belonged, and GRU Military Intelligence.
Greta said, “It would have been an honor to have served under you.”
“Yes, well, in Afghanistan, this one did.” He tapped Ashimov on the shoulder. “And Captain Levin, the boy wonder.” He swiveled to look at Volkov. “All of us served, in good times and in bad – served Russia and each other. I expect nothing less from you in this present matter.”
