drinking, so I’ll find a cab.”
“Are you sure?”
“No problem.” He gave Svetlana a kiss on the forehead and smiled at Katya. “Don’t wait up for me.”
“I’ve no intention.” She went to the sideboard, opened a drawer, and returned with a control device for the gate. “Now you can go and come as you please.”
“What a woman.” He kissed her lightly on the mouth and went out.
IT WAS PLEASANT walking down through Belsize along Abbey Road, which made him think of the Beatles, and then he came to Swiss Cottage, where there were dozens of cabs swirling by. He hailed one and sat in the back, thinking about what Bounine had just said. It was Luzhkov feeling the sap rising because Putin had approved of what Kurbsky had done. So Luzhkov had failed in some previous attempt to deal with Johnson and now the idea of kidnapping him had appealed to him, which seemed utterly ludicrous to Kurbsky. If Luzhkov succeeded, what on earth was he going to do with Johnson? He shook his head.
He told the driver to stop at the end of the street, paid him, and walked to the entrance of the safe house. He announced his arrival, the Judas gate opened, he stepped through, and it closed behind him.
11
Doyle nodded to him at the door as he went through to the computer room, where he found Roper watching the news from Moscow.
He turned and smiled. “There you are, old stick. I must say that cream she’s used under your eyes is really doing the trick. You’re beginning to look like someone out of an old Hammer horror movie. You didn’t drive down, then?”
“Svetlana got the champagne out. A kind of celebration that I’m back in the house.”
“It must be strange for you after all these years.”
“And amazing to be with her again. So much of that time has already returned to me with extraordinary clarity. London when I was a teenager, sharp and fresh and full of zip.”
“The age when anything’s possible.”
“Or you believe it is.” Kurbsky nodded to the news program from Moscow showing old war footage of Basayev. “See, they’ve even got him for home consumption, black and white and grainy, just like the bastard was in real life.”
“The Kremlin is rejecting the scurrilous charges that they have had anything to do with it-while making it clear that the large numbers of people who suffered at the hands of this brutal war criminal, as they describe him, no doubt feel that they have finally seen justice done.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Kurbsky went to the sideboard and poured a large vodka. “Here’s to nine good friends of mine who suffered appallingly at his hands. I wasn’t quite honest with you when you asked me if I’d known him and I said everyone in the Russian Army did. The truth is I was involved with a unit in Chechnya called the Black Tigers, a special-ops paratroop outfit. A reliable source discovered Basayev was at the monastery in the mountains. We were dropped in to try to assassinate him, only the reliable source turned out to be not so reliable.”
“Oh, dear, it was ever thus,” Roper said.
“There were only eleven of us left. He had nine tortured and strung up, and my sergeant and I managed to escape and got back to Grozny.”
“Pass me the whiskey.” Kurbsky did, and Roper said, “The sergeant would be Bounine? He must have been a useful chap.”
“Good God, you know all this?” Kurbsky managed to look amazed. “But how?”
“Your army career on the Internet. There’s a brief citation next to each decoration explaining the reason for the award. In this case, it also said you jumped without training.”
“Several of us did.” He became very open now. “Bounine had jumped a time or two in Afghanistan. The most unlikely-looking paratrooper you ever saw. He had a law degree he kept secret from the army, too.”
“What happened to him?”
“Somebody found out about the law degree and he was transferred to the GRU. There was some talk of a commission, but I was promoted to captain and back in deep shit. I never heard from him again.” He looked at Roper. “But something tells me you know more than I do.”
Roper grinned. “Well, cyberspace can reveal all. He’s done well for himself. A major and still in the GRU, posing as a senior commercial attache at the Dublin Embassy.”
“He always had a brain, that was the lawyer in him. That would make him stand out in any crowd.” He sat back. “So tell me, what’s not being reported? You must know the right people at Scotland Yard.”
“Oh, I do, and it’s almost funny. Josef Limov, the chauffeur, had been Basayev’s hit man for years, and he had a Walther, drawn, but not discharged. Basayev also had a Walther, only his was still in his pocket. The postmortems have not been completed, but rounds already recovered from the bodies indicate the weapon used to kill them was also a Walther.”
“It isn’t almost funny, it is funny.” Kurbsky went to his bag, opened the secret compartment, and produced the Walther he’d been issued. “So this one makes four. A very popular weapon, thanks to James Bond, easy to use and a hell of a stopping power. The preferred weapon of many hit men in Moscow… So you think it was a professional hit?”
“Hard to say. Here you have a thoroughly nasty bit of work full of himself on London television, rich beyond most people’s wildest dreams, and amongst the two or three million Londoners watching the program, there are bound to have been refugees and asylum-seekers who suffered at Basayev’s hands.”
“In other words, who would have loved the chance to bump him off? You could say his appearance at the church was an open invitation. There’s only one thing wrong with that. From what you say, both men were armed and Josef got as far as drawing his weapon, and yet the killer got both of them. That’s the mark of a professional.”
“So that means the Kremlin, either directly or through a contract killer. Since the fall of Communism and the advent of capitalism, the battle for that money has led to an incredible rise in contract killings in Moscow. Journalists, politicians, businessmen. In this case, I’d say the only questions are who paid and whether the killer was imported or local.”
Roper poured another scotch. “And if it’s local, there are plenty of possibilities. The criminal scene has changed a lot since the old days of the East End gangsters. The Moscow Mafia has made its mark, and powerful Albanian and Romanian groups have moved into London.”
“Not to mention the Irish Troubles,” said Kurbsky. “Wars in Bosnia, Serbia, and Kosovo, the first Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan. That adds up to thousands of men not only trained, but used to war. I’m sure many of them would be perfectly capable of doing something like the Basayev killing, especially for money. There used to be a man in Moscow, known as Superkiller, who charged fifty thousand dollars for a hit and was seldom unemployed.”
Roper nodded. “What you’re really saying here is that we might never get anyone for these killings, because there are just too many possible suspects? The general public sees a perfectly vile man sitting on his money and laughing at the world, and when he unexpectedly gets what’s coming to him, the truth is, they’re rather pleased. I guess that’s why I can’t get particularly worked up about the bastard myself. Anyway, there’s something else I want to discuss-Ferguson asked me to raise it with you.”
“And what’s that?”
“We’ve always had a close working relationship with President Cazalet, who has an outfit very similar to ours operating in Washington. It’s called the Basement, and it’s run by a very good friend of ours named Blake Johnson. He’s coming to London tomorrow for a NATO conference with the Ministry of Defence.”
“And?” Kurbsky asked.
“And we do a great many things in tandem with them. Ferguson wonders if you’d agree to him passing on your story to Blake, and through him to the President. It’d be under the strictest of secrecy.”
“No way. I made it plain that I would embark on this venture only if I was guaranteed anonymity. General Charles Ferguson gave me his word on the matter. He has a moral obligation to keep it.”
