get back into power.’ Adrian doesn’t wait for a reply. ‘What they needed was hard currency to save the nation. The rich were getting their money out of Russia as fast as they could because they feared the return of the old regime.’
‘The KGB spirited out four hundred billion dollars, according to our estimate,’ Finn says.
‘Well, we like to say it was the KGB,’ Adrian says vaguely. ‘But it was business interests, organised crime, you name it. Anyway, what Russia needed was our help to save the situation. The oligarchs rallied round Yeltsin to keep him in power and Clinton got together with the heads of the world’s three biggest aluminium producers and told them to fix a price. Completely illegal, of course. But brilliant. And the right thing to do. The price was fixed so the Russians could sell their aluminium at a good price and save the economy. That’s what happened. Russia was saved from a return to Communism. Clinton rewarded the head of Alcoa, the world’s biggest aluminium company, with a job running the US Treasury. There was a hell of a stink, the FBI got involved, all the letter-of-the-law sort of people were up in arms. But Clinton was right. He saw the big picture.’
This is a most subtle approach, Finn thinks. Adrian knows that Finn admires Clinton. Adrian has called Finn a bleeding heart liberal on many occasions and, once, even introduced him as a ‘commie student type’, to much laughter. The fact that Adrian, in his praise of the former president, actually despises Clinton for ‘avoiding the draft’ is, for the moment, forgotten.
So Finn knows that Adrian is getting him onside with this anecdote.
Adrian picks up the wine list and makes a big thing of choosing an extremely expensive Burgundy.
‘Special occasion,’ Adrian says. ‘I want you to know there’s no hard feelings for what happened in Moscow. Let alone your little walk in Germany,’ he added.
‘Thank you, Adrian,’ Finn says, but he is thinking about Mikhail, his source, his
‘Well, right now,’ Adrian continues when the waitress has gone, ‘we’re in a situation which is not unlike the one back then, in ninety-five. But this time we have a new president, Putin, who can really put the past behind Russia, get rid of the Communists for good. He’s got terrific ratings with ordinary Russians. Which he needs,’ Adrian protests, ‘in spite of your harsh view of him. The point is, Putin can make a difference. Bring Russia into the community of nations at last.
‘OK, so he’s not whiter than white. Chechnya was–is- a bloody sham. But we’re all grown-ups and we need to see that Russia has to be handled by a strongman for the time being.’ Adrian looks sadly serious. ‘They’re not, actually, ready for a true democracy yet, Finn. It’s too early, you know. You know that.’
Somehow Finn bites his tongue on a number of possible protest points. He suddenly feels he isn’t hungry at all.
But Adrian is off on another tack, no doubt connected in some way to the Clinton and aluminium story.
‘Those special reports you did for us a few months ago,’ Adrian reminds him. ‘One of your last reports, I believe. A round-up of the Russian oligarchs, if you like, and where they stand in the line of power and money. They’re the people we need, here in the West, and we need them to have the support of Putin and, for that, we need to encourage Putin, not tick him off every time he sends an army into Chechnya, or bumps off a bloody journalist. There are bigger fish to fry.
‘Anyway, those reports were bloody good, Finn. You really got beneath the skin. You showed us the oligarchs, warts and all. The mafia network, their KGB connections, the rough and tumble of the way business is being done in Russia today. Brilliant stuff. Most of all you showed us just how vast their wealth is. Well, we need that wealth, Finn, we need it circulating in the world’s economy, making more money, not just stuck in trust accounts in the Caymans, bugger all use to anyone.
‘What I’m saying,’ Adrian taps the table, ‘is that, while the reports you did were damn good, they gave us exactly the wrong message.’
Finn is momentarily taken aback by this hairpin turn in Adrian’s line of thought.
‘They gave us the true message,’ Finn counters finally.
‘The truth is not always the whole truth,’ Adrian says abruptly. ‘Those reports you did were compiled by us at the Office in order to be shown to our banks and our investors here in the City. UK plc, if you like. They were compiled in order to
Adrian sips the wine and it is excellent. Their wine glasses are filled almost to the brim by the pretty Romanian waitress, and Adrian nudges Finn at her inexperience at pouring wine. But when she’s gone with a nervous smile, he continues.
‘We reviewed them, the reports, at Joint Intelligence and, I must tell you, they received high praise from everyone. The PM was very pleased. But. But. The PM issued an advice to us to tone them down. He knew we have to get our banks and big companies over there, into Russia. Blair’s advice was right. Probably written by Alastair Campbell, though,’ Adrian adds and laughs.
But he is not finished yet.
‘So. Tone them down we did. For Tone,’ Adrian continues forcefully. ‘Because that was the right thing to do. Like Clinton in ninety-five, Mr Blair is doing the right thing with Russia. We can’t get hung up on the
For Finn, this is a first. He has certainly never heard Adrian heap praise on Clinton and Blair in the same meal, or the same year for that matter. But Adrian has made his point about why Putin must be supported, at apparently any cost-even the falsifying of field reports-and now slices through his steak and kidney pie as if he is partitioning India.
‘Vladmir Putin will be very pleased,’ Finn says.
Adrian halts a second forkful of pie before it reaches his mouth. He puts his knife and fork back on to the plate and looks at Finn. Gone is the camaraderie, the
‘Be very careful, Finn. You’re treading a very thin line indeed. Don’t try me.’ He leans in towards Finn and starts to jab his knife too close to his face. ‘Remember Tony Cardonus? He was with the Office in Bosnia at the end of the nineties. Remember him, do you?’
‘No, Adrian, I don’t.’
‘Yes you do. Married a German woman,’ Adrian says, without taking his eyes off Finn’s, without even blinking. ‘We pulled him out for rather the same reasons we had to pull you out. Insubordination. We paid him off and he went to live with his German bint in Saxony or somewhere. Then he got chippy. Then he demanded more cash. Then he began to make threats. First of all we turned his house over in Saxony. We took everything we needed, computers, the lot. That apparently didn’t work. So we had to go back and we turned his house over again and really made a mess this time. In fact, they couldn’t even live in it. Then, would you believe it, when he still didn’t back off, his kid got kicked out of the local school, thank you very much. Then Cardonus found he couldn’t get another job. His German bint and their son left him. Know where Cardonus is now? Working behind a bar in the Hamburg red light district. When he can stand up straight enough. Get me? When we came back the third time, we didn’t just do his house in. So don’t try me, Finn.’
Adrian returns voraciously to his steak and kidney pie.
Finn describes how, at that moment, he saw the brute in his old recruiter properly for the first time: the ruthless, single-minded streak that had got Adrian through the Malaysian jungle or the Omani desert thirty, forty years before; not wearing a grey suit in a London club, but a breath away from death, and which has propelled him through the Service nearly to the top.
‘Not hungry?’ Adrian says to Finn between mouthfuls.
Finn picks up his knife and fork and eats so that Adrian won’t know how sick he feels.
‘You must come down to Wiltshire,’ Adrian says when their plates are clean and he’s pouring the rest of the Burgundy equally between them. ‘Pen would love it,’ he adds, as though it has been some third person who, five minutes before, stopped by the table and issued an explicit physical threat against Finn.
They adjourn for brandy as a late appearance by the sun sends a streak of light through the windows at the front of the club.
‘Pen’s very fond of you, Finn,’ Adrian says, returning to the theme. ‘She and I think of you like…well, like
