soccer chief.
At the end of the evening, as John Madejski slipped out of the stadium to where his chauffeur, Terry, had the big blue Rolls Bentley waiting, a reporter from the
John Madejski, of course, was far too wily to fall for that. 'It was a wonderful game,' he said. 'Played with great spirit. We saw four superb goals and Arsenal deserved it.' As an afterthought he added, 'Tell you the truth, it was a little disappointing for me, because Mr. Valuev was unable to get here…and that was a shame. He would have loved it, even though his beloved Barcelona lost.'
And that was sufficient for the football writer. Not for tonight's report. That was already filed. But for tomorrow's follow-up to the biggest game of the season:
SIBERIAN OIL BILLIONAIRE MISSES BARCELONA'S BIG ONE
Mystery of Jaan Valuev's Arsenal No-Show
The following report pointed out the reason Jaan missed the game was because of the protracted speculation that he and John Madejski might be scheming to buy Arsenal Football Club.
They quoted Madejski as saying 'Rubbish.' And the Barcelona club as saying they were not privy to all of their Chairman's travel arrangements. No, they had not heard from him since the defeat in North London.
Yes, they were quite certain he would be back in the director's box for the game against Spanish rivals Real Madrid at the Birnabau Stadium in the Spanish capital a week from Saturday.
Lt. Commander Jimmy Ramshawe was in heaven. Or, as near to heaven as an organizational hell such as his own office permitted. A colleague from the National Surveillance Office, just returned from Europe, had dropped him off a pristine copy of yesterday's
This was a fairly regular occurrence up here on the eighth floor behind the massive one-way glass walls of the OPS2B Building. Lt. Commander Ramshawe's voracious appetite for top foreign newspapers was well known.
Leaning back in his swivel chair, feet on the desk, he sipped a cup of fresh coffee before reaching for his newspaper and turning to his favorite pages. As it happened there was not much going on in London to interest him, and he kept wandering through the newspaper until he finally landed on the sports pages.
And one word jumped straight out at him:
But there was no missing this. SIBERIAN OIL BILLIONAIRE.
'Hallo,' said Jimmy. 'One of the late Mr. Masorin's mates. What's he done to get himself in with the bloody football players?'
One minute later: 'Christ, the bugger's vanished. Those Siberians aren't having much luck lately.'
On nothing more than pure reflex, he picked up his phone and called Lenny Suchov.
'Lenny, you seen anything about this Siberian oil guy gone missing?'
'Funny you should mention that. We just got a highly classified report in from our man up in Noyabrsk pointing out the Chairman of SIBNEFT has vanished — not been seen for two or three days.
'Our guys think he may have been snatched by agents of Moscow, and put in the slammer, just like they did to poor old Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the biggest Yukos oil shareholder, six years ago.
'Anyway, how did you find out about it?'
'I've just read it in the
'Impossible. This has only just broken. It's not even in the Russian newspapers yet.'
'Maybe not, but the old Siberian was supposed to be at a football game coupla nights ago in London and he never showed.'
'A what!'
'A football game. He's the Chairman of Barcelona.'
'What the hell are you talking about? The missing Siberian is called Sergei Pobozhiy. And he's supposed to be at SIBNEFT's northern site office near the oil field in the West Siberian Basin. Not at a football game.'
'What do'you say his name is?'
'Sergei Pobozhiy.'
Jimmy grappled with the London broadsheet. 'Well, that's a different guy. My man's called Jaan Valuev. He's the boss of some Russian oil company, but it doesn't say here which one. Anyway it does say he's vanished.'
'Christ, Jimmy, that's two missing and one dead in the last couple of weeks, all major Siberians…what the hell's going on?'
'Beats the hell outta me, old mate.'
'Okay, I'll get another couple of field agents on this. Tell you what. I'll keep you posted. But this isn't anything military, or to do with national security. Give me a call in an hour, and I'll tell you where we stand.'
The President of Russia, a big, burly, sallow-faced former deputy head of the Soviet secret police, the KGB, missed the old sledgehammer rule of the authoritarian Central Government more than most.
He rubbed along adequately with both houses of the Russian Parliament — the Federation Council and the Duma — but as the elected Head of State he had enormously broad powers, including the appointment of his deputy, the Prime Minister, and all government ministers.
Some Presidents of the Russian Federation are more approachable than others. This one was very remote, yearning in his heart for the old days of the Politburo, the huge brutal power of the Soviet machine, which could deal with 'trouble' instantly and ruthlessly. This President was not really a committee man.
If anyone had found out what had been perpetrated at the oil summit in Siberia, the President might very well have faced a career-ending onslaught in the Parliament. But this President held power, like so many of his recent predecessors, with an iron grip. The Duma and the Federation Council found out what he wanted them to know.
Russia was ruled from this grand suite of offices where the President now sat, sipping coffee at the head of a highly polished table. With him were just four men, gathered here in the domed rotunda on the second floor of the Senate building, today the ultimate seat of Russian power, situated on the east side of the Kremlin.
The great yellow-and-white, triangular, eighteenth-century neoclassical edifice stands east of Peter the Great's Arsenal building, alongside the old 1930s Supreme Soviet. It is situated behind the ramparts that flank the Senate Tower, directly behind Lenin's tomb.
Like the current Russian President, Vladimir Ilych Lenin both lived and worked in the Senate, a measure of history adored by the reigning President. But perhaps the leader in 2010 liked even better the fact that during World War II, this rotunda hosted the Red Army Supreme Command, under Stalin.
The President was relaxed in this cradle of Russian history, feeling as he always did in the rotunda a vast sense of confidence, impregnability, and destiny. The men who depended entirely upon him for their exalted positions and grandiose lifestyles were apt to treasure his every word.
It was almost impossible to imagine the old days, when Politburo members occasionally vanished for incurring the wrath of their Communist Party leader. Almost impossible. Not quite.
The President smiled at those whose undying trust he enjoyed. There was the Prime Minister, Valery Kravchenko, who like himself was a native of St. Petersburg. There was the current head of the FSB, Boris Patrushov; the Energy Minister, Oleg Kuts; the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Oleg Nalyotov, who literally strutted around in his vast authority, pompously occupying the office once held by the great Andrei Gromyko.
The last man at the table, placed to the right of Nalyotov, was Gregor Komoyedov, the former Moscow oil executive who now occupied the critically important Ministry for Foreign Trade. Above them all fluttered the white, blue, and red horizontal tricolor of the Russian Federation, high atop the flagstaff at the pinnacle of the
